November
15, 2012
ODG Adds Online Return-To-Work Prescription
App
Encinitas, CA - Subscribers to
Official Disability Guidelines on the Web now have access to a
new online tool that generates a return-to-work prescription that
treating doctors or case managers can give to injured workers and
share with the patient’s employer and others.
The ODG RTW Prescription™
app lets ODG users start the return to work process with evidence on
durations and functional restrictions and put that information in
the hands of health care professionals, patients, and employers. It
is an interactive application that automatically creates a work
activity and functional abilities form based on the latest evidence
based information. For treating doctors, it empowers them to provide
the best evidence when they give return to work advice to patients,
with a minimum commitment of their time. For employers, it is the
scientifically based foundation for an employee’s safe and early
return to work. It can eliminate the cost of medical evaluation
reports to clarify functional or cognitive information to support
return to work, plus save the unnecessary costs of indemnity
benefits and lost productivity incurred while waiting for
clarification of RTW information. The ODG RTW Prescription can be
used by any health care professional, insurer or employer to bring
scientifically based evidence to the RTW process. A PDF document is
created from the electronic version once submitted for use by all
stakeholders, serving as a communications tool and creating shared
expectations.
This new feature is
based on the ODG Return-To-Work "Best Practice" Guidelines and the
ODG Capabilities & Activity Modifications for Restricted Work. The
Best Practice guidelines provide various
pathways for the patient to return to work, depending on type of
treatment, type of job, and severity, for every possible diagnosis,
including both occupational and non-occupational conditions. Where a
pathway identifies a type of modified duty work, the Activity
Modifications section defines what the patient is able to perform,
and the Best Practice guidelines describe the period of time the
patient should be in that modified duty job.
Treating physicians can select which pathways
and which activity modifications apply to each patient via checkbox,
and they can also customize the form with their own special
instructions and personal information. A custom RTW prescription
form is created that can be printed and given to the patient, or
saved as an Adobe PDF file for emailing to the patient, the
employer, a case manager, or others.
The new tool is accessed either from the main
ODG contents page, or from within the return to work guidelines,
which are provided for every possible ICD9 diagnosis code, as well
as for every possible ICD10 diagnosis code. For current ODG
subscribers, the direct link is here:
http://www.odg-twc.com/rtwprescription.htm
The current 2012 release of the ODG product
line (including the 17th edition of Official Disability
Guidelines and 10th edition of ODG Treatment in Workers Comp)
provides the most up-to-date evidence-based medical treatment and
disability duration guidelines to improve as well as benchmark
outcomes in workers' compensation and non-occupational
disability. ODG 2012 is based on an aggregate of over 10 million
cases, including CDC and OSHA, referred to as the "most direct form
of evidence that can be offered in court" under the Federal Rules of
Evidence, plus over 2 million medical records from actual workers’
compensation and disability claims.
For the ODG RTW Prescription, the ODG
Return-To-Work "Best Practice" Guidelines are used because they are
most appropriate for prospective management of disability and return
to work. For retrospective benchmarking of disability duration, ODG
also has Return-To-Work Summary Guidelines.
According to Trang
Nguyen, MD, PhD, author of "Nonspecific Low Back Pain and Return
to Work" in the Journal of the American Academy of Family
Physicians, “Returning to work can be an important part of a
patient's recovery from injury or illness. Communication with the
patient, employer, insurance company and case manager can improve
clinical outcomes by reducing the adversarial situation, promoting a
good worker-employer relationship and providing an opportunity for
the physician to assess the patient's job duties and to request
adequate work modifications. Making it easy for treating providers
and others to give evidence-based return-to-work instructions to the
patients should facilitate this process. The primary value of
activity modifications as a communication tool, when all parties are
involved, is to create shared expectations. They can also facilitate
return to modified duty, which is often a critical first step in the
return-to-work process. It should be remembered that duration off
work is the single most important predictor of failure to return to
work.”
Work Loss
Data
Institute is an independent database development company focused on
workplace health and productivity based in Encinitas, California.
The Official Disability Guidelines product line is available in
Web-based, textbook and Systems Integration format, as well as the
new ODG Mobile Pro App. ODG is used in all 50 states and worldwide.
For more
information, visit
www.worklossdata.com or contact Work Loss Data Institute at
800-488-5548.
Note: In making restrictive duty
recommendations, ODG does not use DOL job categories. DOL job
categories, based on lifting requirements, are frequently used to
predict disability duration, but there is little evidence to support
this. Various high quality published studies have shown that the DOL
job class, at the time of injury or illness (i.e., “sedentary”,
“light”, “medium”, “heavy”, and “very heavy”), is not predictive of
return-to-work time.
