The folks at American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) know something about doctors. They also know quite a bit about workplace injuries in that most of the members are physicians actively practicing in the field, in one capacity or another. That’s why we sat up and took notice when we saw their recent publication, A Guide to High-Value Physician Services in Workers’ Compensation – How to find the best available care for your injured workers. ACOEM joined forces with the International Association of Industrial Accident Boards and Commissions (IAIABC) to produce the 11-page “best practice” summary, which includes the best thinking and contributions from a diverse group of workers’ compensation system stakeholders in a meeting convened by ACOEM and the IAIABC last April. You can see the list of participants on page 11 – a group of heavy hitters that includes a geographical and industrial sampling. It’s great to see a think tank of employers and insurers sitting down at table with policymakers and physicians to come to some agreement about best practices. The only thing we might suggest for improvement would be to add a representative from labor at any future convocations.
The stated purpose of the document is to provide specific guidance and resources to all stakeholders in the workers comp system – from injured workers and employers to insurers and TPAs – to help identify the best physicians for care of both everyday, uncomplicated injuries, as well as for specialized medical services addressing catastrophic injury or administrative tasks required by the workers’ compensation process.
It identifies ways to find physicians who:

• Are willing to accept patients covered by workers’ compensation insurance
• Employ best practices in providing high quality and compassionate medical care
• Respect and fulfill the extra responsibilities that the workers compensation system creates
• Produce better overall outcomes at comparatively better total cost over the course of an injury or illness. (High-quality care produces better outcomes for workers and better value for payers.)

The Guide offers both a “High value” checklist and a step-by-step process for identifying physicians, verifying credentials, working with, and measuring performance. We put this one on our “required reading” list. And for adjunct reading, we also recommend ACOEM’s Preventing Needless Work Disability by Helping People Stay Employed.