As an employer, most of your employee based work comp claims are completely legitimate and should be handled in the best interest of the injured employee. Unfortunately, some are also fraudulent, causing increasing costs on baseless claims. Historically, it's been challenging to contest some of these claims, though recently a new road has opened, allowing enlightened employers to more rapidly travel this road to a truthful outcome.
Employers should now consider the usefulness of Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and other social media sites which can contain posts negating the claims of allegedly injured workers participating in activities that are beyond the restrictions placed by the treating physician. These posts can happen on any given day, clearly elucidating a fraudulent claim. For example, let's say that an employee is out of work based on a "work comp" (workers compensation) claim which has restrictions, yet they post links, discussions, comments and photos that are clearly incriminating. This is an area in which companies should be mining regularly to protect your company against out of scope workers compensation claims.
Recently, a transportation attorney based in central Pennsylvania was a guest speaker at an insurance transportation web seminar. His topic was the aggressive defense of trucking lawsuits and he elaborated extensively on an example of forensic social media investigation to assist in the aggressive defense of frivolous lawsuits. I recall that the metrics were impressive; one example noted that a $250,000 claim which was reduced to $2,500 when forensic social media data mining found New Years Eve photos proving the claimant's mobility to be much greater than stipulated in the law suit.
Social media offers a surprising if not inadvertent glimpse into the nuances of the lifestyles of anyone using it, and in certain cases, it also offers important evidence into the veracity of work comp and work comp lawsuit based claims. Employers should be aware of this avenue and investigate accordingly.
The D'Camera Group http://www.dcameragroup.com partners with businesses, creating long range plans to manage their Total Cost of Risk. D'Camera Group's proprietary approach bridges the gap between the client and the insurance marketplace through a series of engagements in which we Discover, Design and Implement a Risk Reduction Plan™. Our specialized business insurance services include risk discovery and assessment, risk reduction strategies, insurance loss management, workers compensation, experience mod factors and improving marketplace competitiveness.
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Using-Forensic-Social-Media-Data-Mining-to-Discover-Work-Comp-Fraud&id=5027122
Employers should now consider the usefulness of Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and other social media sites which can contain posts negating the claims of allegedly injured workers participating in activities that are beyond the restrictions placed by the treating physician. These posts can happen on any given day, clearly elucidating a fraudulent claim. For example, let's say that an employee is out of work based on a "work comp" (workers compensation) claim which has restrictions, yet they post links, discussions, comments and photos that are clearly incriminating. This is an area in which companies should be mining regularly to protect your company against out of scope workers compensation claims.
Recently, a transportation attorney based in central Pennsylvania was a guest speaker at an insurance transportation web seminar. His topic was the aggressive defense of trucking lawsuits and he elaborated extensively on an example of forensic social media investigation to assist in the aggressive defense of frivolous lawsuits. I recall that the metrics were impressive; one example noted that a $250,000 claim which was reduced to $2,500 when forensic social media data mining found New Years Eve photos proving the claimant's mobility to be much greater than stipulated in the law suit.
Social media offers a surprising if not inadvertent glimpse into the nuances of the lifestyles of anyone using it, and in certain cases, it also offers important evidence into the veracity of work comp and work comp lawsuit based claims. Employers should be aware of this avenue and investigate accordingly.
The D'Camera Group http://www.dcameragroup.com partners with businesses, creating long range plans to manage their Total Cost of Risk. D'Camera Group's proprietary approach bridges the gap between the client and the insurance marketplace through a series of engagements in which we Discover, Design and Implement a Risk Reduction Plan™. Our specialized business insurance services include risk discovery and assessment, risk reduction strategies, insurance loss management, workers compensation, experience mod factors and improving marketplace competitiveness.
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Using-Forensic-Social-Media-Data-Mining-to-Discover-Work-Comp-Fraud&id=5027122
No comments:
Post a Comment