A disability carrier can be a great partner to help proactively address an employee’s health issues and minimize the loss of productivity and other costs associated with an employee working through a medical condition. Whether it’s helping your client understand how to approach an employee who may be experiencing a medical condition, determining the right accommodations, or just providing reassurance to an employer or employee, you can help guide your clients through the process of managing an employee’s disabling condition with the following advice.

Call in the experts

Some disability programs have vocational, nurse and behavioral health consultants who have years of expertise in their respective fields to help with stay-at-work and return-to-work accommodations and plans. These consultants can provide a unique type of support for your clients and their employees.

Not only are these consultants specialized, with have deep expertise in areas such as ergonomics, chronic conditions and behavioral health, many have significant knowledge of specific industries, such as manufacturing and health care. This understanding of an industry, both its environment and potential regulations, is an important component of a strong disability management plan. That means a consultant will know if an accommodation could be a fit for an employee, and understand how it would function in a work environment, like a production line or hospital room.

Consultants from a disability carrier are available over the phone, or can often integrate into your client’s workforce full time. If in-person assistance is needed, consultants can be on-site at an employer’s location within a matter of days. This can not only help take work off your client’s plate, it can help ensure that employees get the right type of support for their job and work environment.

Understand ways to provide support

Accommodating an employee isn’t a one-size-fits-all type of solution. Comprehensive disability management support should take the employee’s job, responsibilities and diagnosis into account.

This is where a stay-at-work or a return-to-work plan can be developed for an employee’s unique situation. A stay-at-work plan can be developed to support an employee in the workplace before he or she is out on a disability claim. A return-to-work plan can be developed if the employee is already on a claim, and looks to bring an employee back to work the right way, at the right time.

Both plans can be developed by the consultant through your disability carrier, and include the input of the employee, employer and the employee’s medical team to ensure that accommodations and proposed support are not only in line with the employer’s expectations, but take into account any limitations or restrictions imposed by the employee’s medical team.

These plans help set clear expectations, include the input of key stakeholders, and can be reassessed and adjusted based on the employee’s capabilities and medical condition. Above all, they can help provide an employee with support to ensure he or she gets the help they need to stay at work or return to work after a medical condition. This type of assistance can be especially helpful for your HR contacts who aren’t in the disability management field, and aren’t versed in accommodations.

As a consultative resource, encouraging your clients to seek out the help of their disability consultant for stay-at-work or return-to-work plans is a key component for a successful partnership. Making this connection not only helps provide an employee the help they need, it may even reduce the number of calls you field from clients who need assistance.

Look for opportunities to integrate resources

Sometimes the best help for an employee is through resources provided by other employee benefits, or the employer itself. Comprehensive disability management approaches often integrate resources from other carriers, including disease management, smoking cessation, wellness or employee assistance programs, to help ensure employees can get the most out of what is already available to them.

This is even true for a program or resource that is provided by another insurance carrier. Some disability carriers will bridge the gap between a disease management program or EAP and the employee, and take some of the pressure off the HR professional. A disability carrier’s case manager can provide the initial support an employee needs and link them up with the program that can provide them the best assistance. Additionally, the consultant can follow up with the employee to see if they used the service, if they have any questions or need additional care, and provide information to the employer about how many people were referred to various programs and if an employee followed up with any recommendations.

Referring employees to these programs for assistance is another way to increase use of important programs that sometimes fall by the wayside or are underused by employees. This integration can help emphasize the importance of these resources and encourage employees to use the benefits that are provided through these programs.

The approach at work

A recent success story highlights the importance of a comprehensive approach and how it can help employees from feeling labeled at work by their medical condition.

An employee who works for a manufacturer on its production line was recovering from leg surgery, and needed to use a cane to assist him in walking. For safety reasons, the production line manager would not let the employee use his cane on the production line floor — ultimately placing rigid restrictions on the employee’s return to work.

Whether intended or not, the product line manager ostracized an employee who was ready to come back to work. The employee’s HR manager ended up calling their assigned disability consultant to help find a solution. The disability consultant conducted a job analysis and worked with the employee, employer, production line manager and the employee’s medical team to determine an approach that could work for everyone.

Not only was the employee able to return to work and use the cane, the disability consultant also identified another solution — the purchase of a tool to help him grab items without having to reach for them. This additional accommodation was purchased to help him work safely and not strain himself or re-injure himself further.

A supportive environment

The labeling of an employee because of a medical condition is a real phenomenon in your clients’ workplaces. Providing a supportive environment is key to keeping an employee with a medical condition at work, productive and happy. Providing this counsel to employers is important to ensure the success of your relationship and to help them understand how much more they could be getting from their benefits.