The Injured Worker As A Piggy Bank

We have written before about the misaligned incentives often found in workers’ compensation. I have referred to it as ‘treating injured workers for fun and profit,’ reflecting situations where actions and processes are applied that may not be in the best interest of the worker, but financially benefit the people who are supposed to be helping them.

There is a great deal of responsibility upon those of us in the industry not to abuse that fact, as workers are often further hurt in that process.

That process is commonly known as ‘the churn.’

A session at last week’s CCWC Conference in Anaheim, CA, touched on this point. The session was ‘Mitigation Strategies: A Holistic View of Claims.’ The panelists were Chad Coleman, Jamie Goff, and Danny Thorn. It was moderated by Brian Arnold.

Danny Thorn, who is with Benchmark Claims Administrators, discussed these misaligned incentives that can exist in the system and made the reference that the injured worker was, in those cases, a ‘piggy bank’ for unethical players in the industry.