Emerging Issues from COVID-19 in the Australian Workplace.

This article addresses a range of workplace issues, with a focus on workers' compensation and return to work, and employment law and related medical issues after the outbreak and spread of COVID-19 in Australia since 2020. It will briefly address some changes to the insurance industry generally and then consider the sometimes complex issues arising from workers' compensation claims, which have changed behaviours in claims and injury management. It concludes the theme emerging from decided cases to date that employers, insurers, and rehabilitation providers must adopt a reasonable approach to the consultation and implementation of workplace changes affecting injured workers subject to return-to-work programs.

Workers' Compensation, Return to Work, Behavioural Health and COVID-19 in Australia.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted a range of challenges for the participants in Australian workers' compensation schemes. Although there are some jurisdictional differences in legislation operating at sub-national levels, this article addresses some common themes that have emerged since the outbreak of the pandemic in Australia in early 2020. One of the major concerns which has emerged is the issue of proving the causal link between COVID-19 and work. In some jurisdictions, legislation has specifically addressed these causation concerns. While the number of workers' compensation claims overall is low, there are specific industries which have been heavily affected by the pandemic which may result in a spike in claims in areas such as aged care and the medical and allied professions. We speculate that a number of legal and practical concerns will emerge that may in time contribute to some new jurisprudence in the workers' compensation arena.

Breaking the web of needless disability.

BACKGROUND: It is well established that environmental factors can have impact upon an injured person's recovery and return-to-work outcomes. To date, there has been no cohesive model to provide theoretical understanding of the way in which these divergent factors combine to create disability behaviours. OBJECT: Development of a conceptual model for understanding the development of disability behavior. METHODS: Interpolation from existing neuroplasticity theory to observed behaviors and studies of behavior in the workers' compensation environment, including existing research concerning predictors for disability. RESULTS: The paper describes a conceptual model for understanding instances of disability that are not necessarily attributable to physical harm. Preliminary testing provides support for the model. CONCLUSIONS: Factors that contribute to the formation of a neural network supporting the behavior of learned disability are described. From that description, intervention methods to prevent or resolve so-called "needless disability" are discussed.