Lower Your Work Comp: Don't Delay Your Worker's Routine Health Checkups

The Hartford Study

According to a recent study conducted by The Hartford, 43 % of workers in the United States have delayed routine health checkups ever since the COVID-19 pandemic started.

This says a lot about the possible effect that any health conditions workers may have had during the pandemic. Many workers were scared to contract COVID-19. Others couldn't really get a doctor's appointment or needed to cancel their appointments due to the restrictions where they lived. There are also those who were scared to contract other illnesses or just didn't consider getting a routine health check-up as a priority.

Sure, these are valid concerns but what if a worker's pre-existing heart condition worsened during the course of the lockdown? What if someone's mental health was severely affected by all the restrictions just to keep away from the COVID-19 virus?

Primary Disease and Secondary Disease

According to the Medical Dictionary, Primary Disease is a disease that arises spontaneously and is not associated with or caused by a previous disease, injury, or event, but that may lead to secondary disease. 

Now, we go back to a worker's pre-existing heart condition. Let's say this worker's condition is left unchecked and given that the stressors during the pandemic were quite predominant, this may greatly affect that worker's condition. 

As people know, if mental health declines, so do one's physical health. It can take someone with anxiety or depression a far longer time to recover from a physical injury or illness. That said, if workers' health care appointments are delayed, illness may develop or get worse than it already is.

Why Employers Should Care

Well, for one thing, workers are the main reason why your company is thriving. They are the core of your brand. Without your hardworking, dependable, and amazing employees, you would have to run all over the place on your own and your company wouldn't really function fully.

Another point is that Workers Compensation EMR rating or EMR score is at stake. For companies that have at least one or more employees, you need to have this coverage in most states in the US. If your people are getting sick one after the other, this really would affect your EMR Rating or EMR score. You want to make sure your score is good to maintain a good premium. But to do that, you need to ensure that your people are safe from harm or illness.

 

Employers Can Help Their Workers

Caring enough to want your employees to be OK is really something any company owner would naturally want. Not just because you're earning off of them but that you genuinely care that you don't want anyone sick. I mean, we're all humans. Caring for each other's welfare is normal.

Now, ensuring worker benefits that can cover mental, physical, and financial aspects when injured is detrimental to improving a worker's life and productivity. Having a plan in place for workers to access telemedicine or virtual medical consults and test drop-offs can really help make sure that everyone still gets the medical care they need. Maintaining good physical and mental health makes for good business sense too!