Reduce Employee Health Costs With On-Site Care
Rising healthcare costs are a significant challenge for employers and employees alike. For businesses, these seemingly unavoidable and required expenses can strain budgets year after year. For employees, the financial burden of medical care, even with insurance, can be overwhelming. And nobody knows this more than those in industries like manufacturing and warehousing, where the risk (and reality) of workplace injuries is higher.
In these environments, even a seemingly minor injury can escalate into a major expense, triggering a cascade of direct and indirect costs to both the employee and employer. Faced with this reality, many business leaders feel caught in a bind, believing the only solution is to navigate a complex and highly regulated healthcare system.
However, there is a more proactive and effective approach: prevention. By focusing on preventative, on-site care, companies can create a safer workplace, support their team’s well-being, and significantly reduce employee health costs.
Cost of workplace injuries
When an employee gets hurt on the job, the most obvious cost is the direct financial impact, such as workers’ compensation claims and increased insurance premiums. But there’s more than just the direct cost at play with workplace injuries. And often, the indirect costs are like chronic pain that builds up over time and, if left unaddressed, can become debilitating to a business.
These hidden costs include:
- Lost productivity: An injured employee may need time off to recover, leading to lost work hours. Even when they return to work, their productivity is often reduced due to necessary accommodations for their continued healing. And in some cases, during their absence, the rest of the team may need to cover extra hours for them, which can lead to burnout and decreased efficiency across the board.
- Decreased morale: Workplace injuries can negatively affect team morale. Seeing a coworker get hurt can create anxiety among other employees. A sense of being unsupported by management during the recovery process can further erode trust and engagement.
- Scheduling and operational disruptions: Covering for an injured employee often requires scheduling changes, overtime for other staff, or hiring and training temporary replacements. These disruptions can interfere with production schedules, delay projects, and create logistical headaches for managers.
Altogether, these indirect costs can be even more significant than the monetary costs of an injury. Focusing solely on the insurance payout overlooks the widespread disruption that even a single incident can cause.
The traditional response to injuries
For decades, many businesses have followed a standard procedure for handling workplace injuries, one largely dictated by workers’ compensation carriers and insurance providers. When an employee reports an injury, they are sent off-site for medical evaluation. This traditional, reactive approach is riddled with inefficiencies and frustrations for everyone involved.
Typically, this process leads to:
- Delayed care: The injured worker often faces delays in receiving treatment. They might have to wait for appointments with specialists as well as imaging or other test results to be interpreted before moving on with care, which means the worker doesn’t start a treatment for days or weeks following the injury. This delay may even turn a minor issue into a more serious, chronic condition.
- Expensive tests: The medical system often defaults to a battery of expensive diagnostic tests up front, some of which may not be immediately necessary, before approving a treatment plan. This drives up the cost of the claim from the very beginning.
- Administrative headaches: The paperwork involved in a workers’ compensation claim is notoriously complex. Both HR managers and the injured employee spend significant time navigating forms, communicating with insurance adjusters, and tracking the claim’s progress, pulling them away from more valuable work.
- A frustrating experience: The entire process can feel impersonal and adversarial. Employees may feel like they are just another claim number, while employers feel powerless over the escalating costs and timelines.
This reactive model of treating workplace injuries often provides an unpleasant experience for nearly everyone involved and does little to prevent future incidents. The solution lies in shifting from reaction to prevention.
How preventative care breaks the cost spiral
Imagine for a moment the inverse approach. An employee in your warehouse mentions a slight ache in their lower back at the start of their shift. Instead of waiting for the discomfort to become a full-blown, recordable injury, they can immediately consult with an industrial athletic trainer or injury prevention specialist right there, on-site.
By the afternoon, that employee has received one-on-one coaching on proper lifting techniques, massage, corrective taping[DK1] , and other resources to alleviate the strain. Rather than slowing down their work to accommodate their injury for weeks on end, they take an hour or two of one shift to learn how to heal it and get back to 100% with no interruption.
This is the power of preventative industrial health care. It disrupts the cycle of employees working “hurt but not injured,” where minor aches and pains gradually worsen until they result in a serious, costly claim.
With on-site care (or on-call via virtual care), you can:
- Address issues early: Specialists can identify and address musculoskeletal discomfort before it becomes a recordable injury. Early intervention is the most effective way to prevent minor issues from escalating.
- Provide immediate support: Having experts on-site means employees get immediate attention. This not only aids in faster physical recovery but also shows them that their well-being is a top priority.
- Empower employees: Industrial athletic trainers can educate your team on body mechanics, ergonomics, and self-care techniques directly related to their personal work and health concerns. This knowledge empowers your employees to take an active role in their own health and safety, creating a more resilient workforce.
- Reduce claims and lost time: By preventing injuries from happening in the first place, you benefit from a reduction in workers’ compensation claims, insurance premiums, and lost work days.
In a qualitative sense, this approach leads to a team that feels genuinely cared for with a tangible workplace benefit. It also helps builds a culture where safety is not just a policy but a shared value.
Work-Fit can transform your injury rate and satisfaction
Creating a true culture of safety doesn’t happen overnight, but you don’t have to do it alone. Partnering with Work-Fit can rapidly transform your company’s approach to industrial injury prevention and employee well-being.
We work with you to understand the specific challenges and risks within your operations. Whether it’s through on-site athletic trainers providing immediate preventative care or virtual consultations and assessments, we tailor our solutions to fit your needs.
Take the first step toward lowering healthcare costs and building a healthier, more satisfied team. Contact our team today to learn how Work-Fit can help you solve the health and safety challenges at your company.
[DK1]removed personalized stretching – if the EE is complaining of pain, then this violates an OSHA rule. But I replaced it with OSHA First Aid examples!
