Educate and Engage your Injured Worker – Or Pay the Price  

By Harvey Warren, Author, The Optimized Patient  

Employers frequently pay a high price for unnecessary or avoidable services when a worker is injured because the worker rarely understands their role in their own recovery.  Adjusters, case managers, doctors, physical therapists, and pharmacists are educated about their role in the workers’ ompensation system, but the vast majority of injured workers feel lost and abandoned in the recovery process.   At a recent national conference, Dr. Melissa Tonn, Chief Medical Officer at Opus Medical, observed a fundamental need when working with injured workers, “they have to be a participant in their own recovery”.  Increasingly, industry leaders are recognizing that the patient is the wildcard in the recovery process. Said another way, workers want to get better they just don’t know how – and the employer is paying the price.    

Five years ago, I was asked if the methodology of optimizing patients that I detailed in my book, The Optimized Patient, could be applied to lower the cost of workers’ comp.  The answer was a definite yes and now there is an established program of peer-to-peer education delivered by the late Bill Walton, Olympian Shannon Bahrke, MMA fighter Nathan Quarry, peak performance coach Joseph McClendon III, Rich Dad advisor Blair Singer and nutritionist Dr. Kay Bruening, PhD, RDN.    

Bill Walton was the keynote speaker about mindset at WCI in 2023.  Shannon Bahrke was the keynote speaker about mindset at National Comp in 2025.  The convention planners have recognized the wisdom in addressing the reality that “the patient is the wildcard in the recovery process”.  Further, in panel, I presented at National Comp 2025 with Shannon, Dr. Melissa Tonn and Brian Allen about how a robust education platform has not only been welcomed by the injured it has helped to hasten recoveries and suppress litigation.  

Leading the workers’ comp industry into a new understanding of how to best lower the cost of care for injured workers has been challenging.  It brings to mind an adage attributed to Abraham Lincoln, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”  Sharpening the axe, we believe, provides active and comprehensive patient education as the best plan to “chop down” the cost of workers’ compensation claims.  

Workers’ comp cost control traditionally focuses on “per touch” services, not on outcomes.  A cursory query on ChatGPT will yield volumes on “incentivizing per touch” while suggesting the value of a paradigm shift to incentivize per outcome is, as yet, not fully proven and in some cases has not been quantified.  Interestingly, many of the attendees at National Comp intuitively recognized and agreed that an educated and motivated injured worker will certainly return to work in a much shorter time frame - the desired outcome.  

Sadly, there is a misconception that the workers’ comp system is generally exploited by the injured with lawsuits and malingering.  Although there is a small number that falls into that group, the universe of injured workers is actually on a bell curve.  At one end are the “cheaters” while at the other end the aggressive patients who want to get back to work as soon as possible.  What we have experienced, over the last five years, is that the vast middle section of that bell curve is comprised of injured workers who “want to get better, but don’t know how.”  Medical literature fully supports that premise by recognizing that mindset, nutrition, activity and rest are essential to an optimized recovery.  So much so, that surgeons often evaluate the psycho-social details of a patient and may decline treating individuals who present themselves as not ready to fully engage in the work of recovery.  

Injury recovery is not something that is part of regular education at any grade level.  Providing the injured worker with the information they need to navigate all the unknowns of the recovery process is something every employer needs to consider, or “pay the price” of unnecessary or avoidable medical costs and lengthy returns to work.   

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