We are excited to welcome Tania to ABILITY GROUP. After 4 years as a clinical physiotherapist, Tania joins HEALTH ABILITY as a specialist rehabilitation consultant. With expertise in assessing and treating a variety of injuries, impairments and conditions, Tania’s professional and enthusiastic approach will assist in accelerating the return to work of injured workers following a workplace injury.
A decision made by Workers Compensation Commission Deputy President O’Grady in Sabanayagam v St George Bank Ltd [2016] on 21 January 2016 has resulted in important changes for NSW businesses. Effective immediately, any decision to cease a workers’ weekly payments of compensation need to be communicated via a Work Capacity Decision (WCD).
This decision is important as it effectively means a legislated 3 month period is required for the WCD to be completed. In context of the 30 June 2015 changes and therefore under the new NSW workers compensation premium formula, it means the additional wage costs will impact a business’ workers compensation premium for the following 3 premium renewals. As a result it is will be increasingly important to ensure all claims are managed in a timely and effective manner. Use of specialists to expedite outcomes will assist businesses in minimising the people, business and financial costs.
8+ million Australians go to work each day with many in manual or sedentary workplaces. Mounting evidence supports onsite physio as a strategy to minimise workplace injuries. With an average of 1/3 of an individual’s life spent at work, it is becoming vital for businesses to adopt measures to prevent, manage and educate employees regarding their health. Using a physio in the workplace is a preventative strategy for businesses wanting to minimise costs, reduce workers compensation claims and more.
The main focus of the workers compensation is to enable injured workers to stay at work or return to work following a work related injury. Workplace rehabilitation plays an important role by involving timely intervention with appropriate and adequate service based needs to assist injured workers back into the workplace. We are pleased to say our specialist rehab business HEALTH ABILITY has a 100% return to work rate and can support businesses.
ABILITY GROUP were contacted by a broker who had a client distressed about their significant increase in premium due to the impact of the new premium formula. The client had a material claim during their 3 years of experience. Given their industry the Christmas period is crucial for financial viability and having to pay the higher premium could have had a dire consequence.
On the 4th of December 2015, icare (previously known as WorkCover NSW) announced further changes as a component of the NSW government ongoing NSW workers compensation reforms.
The latest reforms include benefit changes to injured employees in need of the highest benefits being those with a Whole Person Impairment (WPI) of >30%. In addition to this there were several other as well as additional changes.