icare has launched a pilot program to trial how an independent panel of medical specialists could radically improve the time of approval and provision of treatment to injured workers within the NSW workers’ compensation scheme.
icare chief medical officer Dr Chris Colquhoun said delays in approving evidence-based best practice treatment requests could be both frustrating and detrimental to injured workers.
“Currently injured workers can face delays of up to six weeks before a treatment plan is approved,” he said. “The delay is not only frustrating to injured workers, employers and treating doctors, but also potentially adversarial - more importantly it can lead to a deterioration of the injury, causing further complications and delaying the return to work.”
In order to address what are often weeks of delay, icare sought the guidance of a panel of medical experts as it aims to speed up the process to no more than five days.
“For independent medical examiners, the quality of referrals will be improved via a ‘clinician to clinician’ process, ensuring the specific issues within a particular case are directly identified and addressed,” Dr Colquhoun said.
The chief medical officer also identified another key goal of the pilot, which is to gather evidence on early treatment intervention, and assess the lasting beneficial impact this can have on quality of life and return to work outcomes.
“The panel will provide our scheme agents with medical case support and resolution for more complex cases,” he explained. “Over time, we aim to extend this support to other stakeholders within the scheme, particularly treating doctors.”
The trial will run for 12 weeks, by which time icare will evaluate its value to injured workers.
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