Rehab Providers, Injury Management Professionals, Insurers – We Hear You!

You can’t complete the puzzle if there is a missing piece, so how can you confidently implement a return-to-work plan, with missing information?

We know the challenge.

With a growing number of workers compensation clients, we recognise the important roles our Physiotherapists and Exercise Physiologists play in contributing to positive RTW outcomes for our clients. But we previously found that we could be left out of the equation or overlooked as a stakeholder who could offer important insight, or you could say, we were the missing piece to the puzzle.

Over the last couple of years, Precision Physio has undergone a shift in how we contribute to positively influencing recovery at work within the workers compensation scheme.

This is what makes us different. 

We understand you as one of our stakeholders, and our approach has been tailored keeping you in mind.

Workers compensation claims can be complex, and even on our end as the treatment provider, it can be difficult for us too if there is a lack of collaboration across the support team.

The ‘management’ of our clients is just as important as their clinical treatment, in fact they go hand in hand. So there are a couple of things that you can expect in working with our team.

We hear you

Our number one focus is optimising our clients physical capacity and function so that they can safely and quickly resume their preinjury activity and work. But we go beyond the acute injury, so that our clients achieve durable and sustainable health outcomes, with our combined approach of Physiotherapy and Exercise Physiology. Whilst our priority is our client, we also understand the interests and impacts workers compensation claims have beyond our clients. So we know the goal and positive health outcomes we achieve for our clients, has a direct impact on their Employers, and the external interests of Insurers and Rehabilitation Providers.

Impartial and Objective Guidance

Our treatment providers are in a unique position where our business is not impacted by those external drivers of reducing LTI’s, cost of claims and workers comp premiums that businesses, insurers and rehab providers often have, but we do understand this, and genuinely believe in the health benefits of work for our clients in aiding their recovery. We are in a position where we can offer impartial and objective guidance based on clinical assessments, that can help you understand your workers struggles, safe maximal capacity, and therefore plan ahead to support a safe and timely recovery at work.

Matching treatment to job demands

We also believe in matching our tailored treatment programs to our clients job demands. We will always commence care of a new wcomp client by seeking confirmation of their functional job demands to ensure we have clear functional and RTW goals. This will also help us to provide practical guidance on RTW goals, education and work conditioning.

Early identification of barriers & limitation

Often barriers to RTW can have nothing to do with the injury itself, and it comes down to active listening, identifying potential risks, barriers and limitations early on, and being able to collaborate with the most appropriate stakeholder to address these. One of the first screening tools we always administer is the Orebro (OMPQ) as part of our internal framework. This helps us to identify those at higher risk of delayed RTW, in addition to the information gathering that is involved as part of our clients treatment sessions. We also utilise SIRA’s directory for screening tools and apply those relevant to our clients. We use this information to support our clinical reasoning but also to identify flags. With any barriers or limitations identified, we work with our Clients support team to address any factors that may cause delays to their recovery and RTW.

We want to work with you

From commencement of treatment, we already encourage open communication and seek guidance from the insurer to understand who our stakeholders are for each client. Understanding our clients job demands from their Employer’s perspective helps our Clinicians understand expectations, plan for their clients treatment and provide more practical guidance around appropriate upgrades and timeframes for recovery. We understand that GP reviews can be crucial points in our clients recovery, so we aim to align our communications with these GP reviews to aid in our clients RTW upgrades, or in sharing information and recommendations. 

A Combined approach

Here at Precision Physio we have Physiotherapists working in partnership with our Exercise Physiologists. When considering long term recovery and outcomes, sometimes this may mean looking beyond what is immediately in front of you. Understanding root causes and helping clients to adopt healthy lifestyle choices and empowering them to take ownership of their health, and progress to exercise intervention and independence, will reduce the chances of recurring claims and injuries. 

Want to make your job easier? Refer to Precision Physio.

If you would like personalised help or have any questions, feel free to call us at 9623 2220 and ask for Petrina.