EAPs: Workers' Comp Payment for Psychological Harm On the March

Run, don't walk to the press release machine to announce to the world how effective employee assistance programs (EAPs) can be in helping employees who have been exposed to critical incidents and as a result helping mitigate posttraumatic stress effects and workers' compensation costs!

The restrictions on paying for psychological harm and emotional stress associated with critical incidents injuries has re-awakened in the aftermath of the Newton, Connecticut child mass shooting episode. The rationale driving the legislative reviews and arguing for paying workers for psychological harm is the 20 first-responders who have still not made it back to work because of posttraumatic stress or emotional harm. And other states are reviewing their workers' comp laws as well.

I don't see the discussion in the mainstream media about the value of EAPs, but you and I both know that EAP involvement can mitigate traumatic stress and lead to possibly less impact on first responders and therefore help to avoid Workers' Compensation payouts or at least reduce or minimize them.

This saves companies money. EAPA, now is your time to get to the New York Times and offer an interview or send a press lease enmass to respectable news outlets.

How many of these first responders are alcoholic or drug addicted persons in or out of former recovery? An EAP referral would find out. Isn't it possible that addictive relapse is involved in some of these cases? Who is going to assess that? There are a whole host of issues here to discuss as well. What is the role of the family members of first responders since this incident? How are they helping or hurting the goal of getting these employees back to work. Is it really necessary to head immediately to the legislative office to start sending these employees a paycheck? Perhaps, but what about a half-way stop with solid EAP promotion and involvement in these cases. I do not pretend to know how what is taking place in Newton with EAPs and those workers. However, I do know nationwide that many first responders do not access decent EAPs, and that loss of EAP access is growing since 1985. And with it opportunities to reduce workers' compensation costs are also being thrown out with the bath water.

We know EAPs can save money, but we also know they have been run over by a Mack Truck in the past 20 years and replaced almost universally with diminished service models that everyone knows will not penetrate and proactively pursue reaching these at-risk workers. Other employees nationwide face the same  circumstances. Want to save money? Don't fix what ain't broke. Stop the hand-wringing--EAPs are right in front of you.

Just sayin'!

EAPs to the Rescue with Workers' Compensation Fraud?

One of my favorite subjects is business insurance. I like to watch news, press releases, and blogs reporting on the many aspects of this field. As I have often opined, business insurance is a stake holder of effective, core technology employee assistance programs. The only problem is, they don't know it. That's the fault of EAPs as a group.

Insurance protects businesses and producers sell insurance. Your bridge to meet these employers and establish yourself is one of following three professionals who know a business owner best: the lawyer, the accountant, or the insurance agent. Insurance agents are your best bet because of synergies associated with the their needs, business needs, and the purpose of EAPs are nicely melded. They must all be concerned about human behavior in the workplace that leads to risk and financial loss.

Who pays for the legal bills of employees sued for sexual harassment? Who pays for the workers' compensation costs associated with sexual harassment (yes, harassed workers have often collected money for sexual harassment) and who will lose money if lawsuits come for sexual harassment? The answer is business insurers. Of course, employers pay too, if insured, through high deductibles.

There are many types of business insurance and there are many behavioral risk exposures that business insurance is designed to address. EAPs interface with many of them.

So the logic is there to team up with this group. Get started. Start in Colorado, or at least follow this legislation to see where it goes an how much influence it carries. Here's the news.

One of the insurance writers I follow is Gary Boop. He writes for "About.com". Gary reported today on a piece of legislation working its way through the Statehouse in the Colorado. The politicians there are focused on prohibiting workers compensation insurers from spying on or doing clandestine surveillance of employees injured on workers' compensation. This technique of finding employees who are stealing money from employers by faking injuries and collecting fat paychecks has been used for decades to reduce workers' compensation costs. Do you know the ramification of such legislation? They are potentially great and it means news skills and capabilities are going to be important to reducing costs. That's where you come in.

Consider this New Colorado bill H.B. 1012

What does this have to do with EAPs? I hope you see the connection, but let me spell it out clearly for you. Limitation of an employer's ability to investigate fraud means there must be some other way to find it, but even better, a renewed interest in preventing it will obviously be on the horizon.

Instead of ignoring injured employees and then seeking to discover criminal malingering to collect benefits, heading these problems off at the pass will get more scrutiny.

I predict that someday a business service will emerge that will be funded by workers' compensation insurers, and that it will play the following role. It will operate confidentially and

• Meet with employees to assess the emotional impact of their injuries,
• Do a family assessment to determine likely areas of distress and conflict at risk for protracting an injury,
• Conduct an occupational alcoholism assessment,
• Help an employee remain motivated and anticipating a return to work,
• Resolve conflicts between an injured employee and the boss or coworkers back at the worksite,
• Offer support for the injured employee during the period of time they are off work,
• Offer guidance, tips, and support upon return to duty so employees experience reduced anxiety and conflict associated with return to light duty or full duty assignments.

I believe these activities would make a hell of a business opportunity to help reduce costs for workers' compensation managed care and employers. Specialists who would do such work would need the skills of employee assistance professionals. So, why can't EAPs get more involved now before such a service robs the field of an opportunity?

EAPs typically don't do these things now, but they could add these services to their continuum of activities and get enormous credit for doing so.

If you have entertained the idea of looking more at the EAP/Workers' Compensation interface, and you happen to service employees in Colorado, run don't walk, to develop your capabilities of servicing these employees with the goal of monitoring their care so they are less likely to fall prey to the temptation of malingering.

Of course, sometimes injuries are very real, except bogus injuries or injuries that were very real at the time become easy to lie about once their pain and debilitating symptoms disappear.

Any thoughts about this? See the drift?