Technology helps curb delays in care for injured workers: NCCI panel

ORLANDO, Florida — Data and technology hold promise in eliminating delays in providing proper care for injured workers, according to panelists who spoke Tuesday at the National Council on Compensation Insurance’s Annual Insights Symposium.

Using tools such as artificial intelligence, which can mine medical reports and claim files for pertinent information about an injured worker, claims handlers can gain faster insights into what a patient may need and ultimately give insurers a better outlook, said Debra Kane, Lisle, Illinois-based vice president of workers compensation claims for CNA Financial Corp.

“In the past, we would see quarterly reports and monthly reports with insights from data trends. We’re now getting that daily, maybe even in real time,” she said.

Neil DeBlock, Palatine, Illinois-based vice president, head of workers compensation claims, for Zurich North America, said workers comp tends to have the most “touch points” with regards to claims handling, from patients to doctors to claims managers, and that technology helps all those involved better understand an injured worker’s treatment and trajectory.

Claims professionals tend to see “a huge number” of documents and medical records, particularly with larger claims, Mr. DeBlock said. “We can use AI to simplify those claims, bring them down, synthesize them, pick out the correct areas to look at; that helps us save so much time,” he added.

Dr. Jill Rosenthal, Boca Raton, Florida-based senior vice president and chief medical officer at Zenith Insurance, a unit of Fairfax Financial Co., said the medical community is also embracing AI in comp, while still relying on doctors and claims professionals as the “humans in the loop” on decision-making.

“As a physician, I receive hundreds or thousands of pages of records, and now I have a tool that will help me synthesize that and create a timeline,” she said. “I want to know what happened that first day this person got hurt, even if it’s 20 years later. I want to understand the progression, to know how we got here today, so that I know where to go tomorrow.”