This article highlights issues the City of Ft Worth is having with their workers’ comp Third Party Administration services. I never know what is true or not in the press, but some of the employees’ comments imply there could be some real issues.

One thing jumped off the page to me in reading the article: the difference in Rising’s preferred methodology for handling claimants and the methodology implied in the article.

The employees in the article talk about “purposeful bureaucracy” as a method of trying to deny claimants’ treatment. We have all dealt with this (cable company, cell phone company, etc.) Read into the “hidden” costs implied in the article. The claimants’ need to get attorneys. The staff that are working overtime become stressed and are less effective because their injured teammates are not back at work helping them.

Rising believes that we can prevent excessive costs by proactively servicing claimants upfront. We’ve got programs that use a “medical concierge” approach. We are a claimant’s advocate and they can call us at any time to discuss care or ask a question. We are there to help them get better. They know their employer cares about them, so they don’t need to get an attorney and they get healthier and back to work in less time. All the necessary costs are incurred upfront, so unnecessary costs are avoided throughout the claim lifecycle.

It is common sense, and the results show it is an all-around win. The claimants are doing better, the employers are better off and this method produces tangible savings. That is the way things should be. There is always a better way.