Risk managers and claims adjusters know how important it is to collect detailed incident data. However, many companies have unstructured collection methods ranging from phone and email to fax and paper. This can lead to inaccurate and inefficient incident data collection, causing challenges that might result in higher claims costs.
A modern RMIS enables clients to easily capture structured data in a manner that is understandable to the field and can include supporting documents and pictures. The key benefits of using a RMIS for incident collection are:
- Managing claims earlier
- Ability to analyze incidents
- Flexibility to change the data collected
All of these benefits can play a part in reducing workers comp litigation as employees can receive communication earlier and companies can better prevent injuries.
One of the key features of many modern RMIS platforms is the ability to collect information about an incident remotely over the Internet. This provides the following benefits:
1. Managing claim costs
The longer it takes for an incident to get in the hands of a claims administrator, it's more likely an injured person will seek medical treatment before someone can manage their claim. Prior to using a RMIS for incident data collection, an Insurance Trust's claim adjusters would receive information on an incident 2 weeks after the incident occurred. Many times the injured employee would have already sought treatment before the adjuster could work on the claims.
Once the Trust enabled their clients to enter their data directly into the system, the claims adjusters were able to react within 24-48 hours. Now the Trust has more control over which doctors see the employees and what treatments are offered.
2. Data to inform loss prevention efforts
When incident data is collected in a consistent manner and loaded into a database, the data can be analyzed. Companies can begin to see trends and identify problems by location, body part, time of day or any other variable that might have an impact on injuries. Safety personnel can then identify the problems that, if fixed, would have the biggest impact. An Origami Risk Transportation and Logistics client told us how they use the information from incident entry to break down information by location. Each location is now able to understand what the challenges are and make adjustments.
3. Flexibility to change the data collected
When information is collected directly into the system, companies can add, modify or change the data collected whenever they want. Input forms can be reconfigured on the fly. With a paper-based system, anytime someone makes a change, new forms have to be printed and then sent to all of the locations. Claims adjusters then have to live with forms coming in wrong or different forms coming from different locations.
With a modern RMIS, companies are able to manage claims earlier, better analyze incidents and change the data collected as needed. All of these benefits can play a part in reducing workers comp litigation as employees can receive communication earlier and companies can better prevent injuries.
To learn more about how incident collection and other factors help manage workers comp litigation, request a demo.