We received an anonymous email from a former workcover case manager, who was so disillusioned with her job she actually went to work for a personal injury lawyer to help injured workers with obtaining their lawful claim entitlements and benefits. She writes that she “recently attended a conference and as they prepared for the talk, which touched on the subject of workers’ compensation fraud, I thought about how the workcover insurance company I worked for used and still uses the threat of fraud accusations as a way of keeping injured workers from pursuing their rights….”
How workcover case managers use fraud accusations as a way of keeping injured workers from pursuing their rights
The former workcover case manager writes that “those few good ones of us in the workers’ compensation insurance practice are in a unique system that has tried as best it can to separate fact from fiction, the reality from the perception in order to do the right thing when it comes to awarding benefits to genuinely injured workers.”
However, so she writes ” before I resigned, I have seen that more often than not, the case manager’s search for the truth and so called desire to do the right thing has taken a major back seat to the search for the gotcha moments:
“Nowadays, virtually any injured worker can be compelled and/or cheated into saying or swearing to almost anything.”
“One recent example, and this is a true story, a claimant who suffered a re-injury at work and reported it appropriately to his supervisor. His boss told him that they would send him to a doctor, but if the doctor says he cannot work, they will have to fire him. They asked him if that’s what he wanted and the worker said no and refused to go to the doctor. The employer then told him that if he didn’t go to the doctor, he would be fired unless he chose to resign. The claimant filed for unemployment (Centrelink) and, after he resigned, he contacted us asking for a doctor and wanting to apply for injury benefits (weekly payments). If this man applies for Social Security, does the fact that he told Centrelink he was capable of working prevent him from collecting Social Security? No, but, that fact will be used against him at a workcover weekly payments (benefits) review of course.”
These issues, the former workcover case manager says, don’t even touch upon people who suffer from major depression after an accident which in and of itself can contribute to the debilitating process and make an injury even worse.
The legislature clearly did not intend for this to happen.
Frankly, the system is corrupt and rotten to the core. What’s more, if you [as a case manager] do not actively ‘participate’ in these immoral tactics, you end up being bullied by your own team members and supervisor(s). The more “unethical” you practice, the quicker you move up the ranks.
Thank you, a workcovervitimsdiary, for publishing my story. It is my wish and hope that my story may inspire more case managers to come forward, whistle-blow and quit the harm they are further inflicting upon injured workers.
Shortlink: http://aworkcovervictimsdiary.com/?p=3729
Thank you so much for sharing your insights, former case manager (I guess you would hate being called a CM now
).
What you convey here are indeed utterly disgusting and immoral tactics used by workcover CMs and employers (!) in order to mitigate ‘claim costs’, and as such make even more profit for the insurance company(ies). I applaud you for keeping your integrity and values, your morals and standards and I am particularly delighted that you now use your inside knowledge to help genuine injured workers in their fights to obtain what they are lawfully entitled to.
Thank you again.
Thank you for having the guts to speak up. Hopefully more people will speak up. I hope that somehow your knowledge can be used to help as many WC victims as possible. I wish you were on my legal team. Maybe with time, you might find that you have a new career as a WC advocate. I hope that with all that I have experienced & all that WC victim continues to teach me, I can play it forward & help others. Thank you again WC victim for giving us the forum to share this valuable information.
We applaud you and thank you once again for sharing your story.
on behalf of WCvictimdiary xxxxx