Managing federal workers' compensation injuries and costs.

BACKGROUND: Federal Employees' Compensation Act injury rates and claim costs benefit from injury prevention and case management efforts. The Department of Labor Protecting Our Workers and Ensuring Reemployment data on lost time injuries and illnesses do support injury prevention and case management activities. METHODS: The management efforts of the Department of Defense, Veterans Administration, and Department of Labor were examined to determine whether more is needed to support injury prevention and case management efforts. RESULTS: Data on Protecting Our Workers and Ensuring Reemployment goal 3 metrics should be provided to safety and occupational health (SOH) personnel to support injury prevention and case management efforts. DISCUSSION: Injury prevention and case management data need to be made available to SOH team members to prevent injuries and lower claims costs. CONCLUSION: Actionable information must be provided to SOH that will facilitate case management and injury prevention programs and lower costs.

Federal workers' compensation programs: Department of Defense and Veterans Health Administration experiences.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this article is to introduce the reader to this special supplement to the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine regarding Federal Workers' Compensation Programs. METHODS: The short history of both the VHA and DoD Federal Workers' Compensation Programs are provided and a short synopsis of each author's article is provided. RESULTS: The lessons learned from the articles in the supplement are summarized in this article and 6 key findings are highlighted. CONCLUSIONS: Cooperation between human resources workers' compensation personnel, safety and occupational health personnel is a must for successful management of the WC program. Information and data sharing are critical for root cause and injury prevention, case management, and cost containment efforts. Enhancing efforts in these areas will save an estimated $100 million through cost avoidance efforts.

Federal workers' compensation program basics.

OBJECTIVE: Primary health care providers may not be familiar with the Federal Employees' Compensation Act (FECA) and Department of Defense regulations that govern injured workers' rights, benefits, and procedures to follow when an injured employee is seen in the military medical treatment facility. METHODS: The FECA program was examined and each section reviewed to facilitate provider involvement from time of injury to final disposition of a claim and employee return to work. The best practices in case management are highlighted as well. RESULTS: Several areas of the FECA program require coordination between members of the installation Federal Worker's Compensation team. Areas requiring extensive communication by all team members were emphasized. CONCLUSIONS: Successful installation FECA programs engage all members of the FECA team in a collaborative fashion to share information, prevent injuries, and keep costs low.

Implementation of a physician-organized wellness regime (POWR) enforcing the 2007 NFPA standard 1582: injury rate reduction and associated cost savings.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the effects of a physician-organized wellness regime (POWR) on a cohort of firefighters while applying the 2007 National Fire Protection Association Standard 1582. METHODS: A prospective evaluation comparing baseline with postintervention injury rate data among 252 Howard County, Maryland firefighters with analysis of return on investment. RESULTS: After implementation of POWR, the Howard County fire department showed a 40% reduction in recordable injuries during year 1, which increased to 60% during year 2. Return on investment was shown to be 4.6:1 by the second year. Moreover, the subpopulation of overweight firefighters showed statistically significant weight loss during the intervention period. CONCLUSION: POWR, a specific type of wellness initiative, can lead to substantial cost savings from an injury-sparing perspective alone and has potential to decrease cardiac risk factors among a high-risk population of firefighters.