Have you ever had an injured employee come back from receiving medical treatment with a set of instructions from the treating physician that are extremely vague, confusing or overly excessive? Then when you try to call the medical provider’s office for clarification, the treating physician has seen so many patients that they really can’t remember why they gave your employee a week off of work for a splinter.
Why You Need Return and Release to Work Form Templates
Sound familiar? It happens all the time. Medical professionals who treat workplace injuries are sometimes stuck between a rock and hard place when treating workplace accidents because they don’t always have a good idea of what kind of work an employee performs every day.
Without this information, they either have to rely solely on what the injured employee says or try and accommodate the worst-case scenario by being vague or overly excessive with work restrictions.
Don’t you wish there was a simple form that you could give to your medical provider to help them make an informed decision about releasing employees back to work? Now there is!
When used in conjunction with our Physical Job Demands Analysis, our new Release to Work Form provides an easier way for the treating physician to properly evaluate whether or not an employee can return to work and if so, to provide specific and appropriate work restrictions for that employee.
Return to Work Template
When an employee becomes injured or ill while on the job, making sure they receive the best care possible is extremely important. What’s also important is having the ability to communicate with the medical provider tasked with treating your injured employees.
More often than not, when an employer takes an injured or ill worker to a medical facility to receive care, the employer often finds themselves left out of the conversation or doesn’t feel comfortable speaking to the treating physician prior to the employee receiving that care.
When an employer is unable to discuss treatment options or details about the injured worker’s physical job demands or information about the injury itself, it puts the employer at a big disadvantage. The outcome of this situation is often treatment plans that are excessive in their restrictions or that include unnecessary prescription medications being given.
To help even the playing field and to make sure that both the company and the employee’s best interests are considered, it’s a good idea to create an initial treatment letter that respectfully asks the treating physician to consider things like using non-prescription medication and allowing the injured worker to return to the workplace, even in a modified duty position.
Like the idea of having such a letter but aren’t sure how to write it? You’re in luck! Our new Return and Release to Work Letter Templates which are designed to communicate respectfully with medical professionals are now available on our website!
