News

One of the most frequently asked questions at the ODG Helpdesk is: “How do I find duration values for a diagnosis, and how does it differ between diagnosis vs. claim level when managing return-to-work (RTW)?” An example of determining the difference can be found below. Let’s use ICD-10 Code S33.5 for this example. As the […] Read More

In 2015, the City of Fort Worth, Texas, had 6,250 employees and calculated total workers’ compensation costs, claims plus indemnity payments, at $9.7 million. The city leadership sought more effective ways to reduce workers’ compensation costs and still help employees received the appropriate care to support quality outcomes and return to work. However, before the city […] Read More

The ever-growing list of new federal, state, and local leave mandates has made administrative functions more crucial than ever to the effective operation of integrated absence management (IAM) programs. However, we sometimes let Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) constraints intimidate us into relinquishing medical case management. When we do this, we are forfeiting […] Read More

While compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is generally assigned to human resources (HR), employers can use the help of clinicians to build programs that facilitate ADA compliance. The ADA went into effect in 1990, with major amendments effective January 2009 to expand the definition of disability. Title I of the ADA obligates […] Read More

At the beginning of a claim, it can be difficult to know if or when referring to a case manager would be helpful. Having a case manager at the beginning of every claim would seem valuable, but it would dramatically increase overall costs, stretch limited resources too thin, and might fail to focus on critical […] Read More

Long before Tiger King clawed out his fifteen minutes of fame, there was Clark Stanley, a.k.a. the “Rattlesnake King.” Stanley, a silver-tongued Texan born in 1854, found fame and fortune in the late 1800s with “Clark Stanley’s Snake Oil Liniment.” He sold his salve across the country as a cure for “pain, lameness, rheumatism, neuralgia, […] Read More

We have all seen cases involving a “simple” back sprain claim that we don’t pay much attention to, only to find ourselves with the claim remaining open a few years later with no sign of the claimant ever returning to preinjury functional level. What is the difference between this claim and a similar one that […] Read More