It’s probably safe to say, in business a partner relationship is preferred over an adversarial one. There are low levels of trust in the latter, not to mention stress for both parties and lack of team effort to get the job done quickly and with good results.
So, in the instance of workers’ compensation claims where every day counts, yes it’s crucial your Retro partner know L&I’s system and whom to contact, but it’s more important they have a respectful, substantive, and trustworthy relationship with L&I.
In this short video on “5 Things You Should Be Hearing From Your Retro Partner”, Dan explains why your work comp provider should tell and show you they’re your L&I advocate.
So what does a positive trustworthy relationship with L&I look like? We asked our claims managers to help with this one and here’s what they said.
Tell us what it’s like having positive relationships with L&I claims managers:
Trusting us to gather information and get it back to them promptly, and them doing the same for us. Treating us like a working partner. Listening to and taking our recommendations into consideration and taking time to explain their actions…
“For instance, recently I submitted a request for an Independent Medical Examination (IME). We do this on behalf of our members when we feel a new condition may be related to a past or unrelated medical issue, and we need to move the claim forward promptly. The L&I claims manager I worked with personally called me to tell me the IME was approved, and took the time out of their busy schedule to go over the documentation we provided and next steps so we could move things forward. Had we not expeditiously worked together on this effort and, the claim could have turned into a very expensive situation for the employer (total knee replacement, WA L&I paid timeloss and permanent partial disability (PPD)).”
A partner you can count on
As we all know, the clock is ticking the moment a claim is filed. So the ability to work effectively with L&I to bring claims to closure quickly and fairly is critical. As we see here, the way to make that happen is for your workers’ comp provider to be your true partner and L&I advocate, not an L&I adversary. We work these issues with the department, so you don’t have to.
If you aren’t sure this is happening for you, or you’re not getting great results working with L&I on your own, learn more about our holistic workers’ compensation advocacy and partnership, then give us a call.
