Restaurant Back Injuries Most Costly

AmTrust’s 2024 Restaurant Risk Report this week revealed that over a six-year period 2018-2023, the most expensive injuries to treat are three categories affecting the back — disc, vertebrae and spinal cord — with the typical paid-out claim for a worker averaging between $60,000 to $85,000.
“When looking at the top 10 most common injuries over the past six years, we saw that, fortunately, these injuries amounted to less than one percent of all the claims we examined. But, they are by far the costliest to treat,” said Matt Zender, SVP, Workers’ Compensation Product Management at AmTrust.
Cuts, punctures and scrapes are the most common injuries in restaurants but are relatively inexpensive to treat with an average cost of $1,798 per claim.
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Rising Medical Solutions has released its 11th annual Workers’ Compensation Benchmarking Study Report, which it says “bridges the gap between leadership vision and on-the-ground realities.”
Among the findings are that frontline claims professionals view compensability investigations, disability/return-to-work management, and medical management as the top three core competencies critical to claim outcomes.
Claims professionals rank compensability investigations as most important, even though they spend most of their time on medical management, disability/return-to-work management, and claim resolution and settlement strategy.
Frontline claims professionals are not receiving adequate training in medical management, especially less experienced professionals.
Claims professionals indicate the greatest training needs are in understanding psychosocial risk factors and mental health issues, as well as understanding diagnostic tests or reports.
“By amplifying the voices of those at the forefront of claims and care, we aim to equip organizations in better addressing the challenges and opportunities of talent retention, technology integration, outcomes management, and employee recovery,” said Rachel Fikes, Chief Experience Officer and Study Program Director at Rising Medical Solutions.
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A new study from the Workers’ Compensation Research Institute (WCRI) on the impact of having an attorney represent workers in their claims is covered in a new 30-minute podcast posted this week.
Bogdan Savych, a senior policy analyst at WCRI, examined the impact of attorney representation when it comes to indemnity payments, or income replacement benefits, for injured workers.
Such representation can result in higher payments and the study found it is possible that involving lawyer can save the WC insurance carrier money by identifying other parties who are liable for the injury through negligence.
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