It is important for a variety of stakeholders in workers’ compensation and disability cases to be able to identify the community standards of care and/or Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy evidenced-based practice so that an individual case can be compared/contrasted to widely acknowledged standards. There are reimbursement, litigation, and practical reasons for doing so, but most importantly, is the need to be assured that an injured workers is receiving optimal services in order to facilitate a safe, prompt and effective return-to-work. Additionally, this approach minimizes the problems associated with delayed RTW, residual disabilities, and the onset of psychosocial issues that present the greatest challenge to absence management.
D+WC’s experts have intimate knowledge of physical therapy and rehabilitation standards of care specifically, evidenced-based practice. In fact, many of our consultants have contributed to this body of knowledge including D+WC’s founder, David Clifton.
Despite the profound impact of managed care upon healthcare; wide treatment variations continue to persist. Despite improvement in study design and dissemination; there continues to be a lag between valid research and applications in clinical practice. It has been estimated that only ten percent of research findings become embedded in practice and this holds true of evidence-based medicine or EBM.
D+WC can help you sort it out. A great deal of treatment is performed either without clinical data to support it or the provider’s clinical documentation fails to demonstrate “significant functional improvement in a reasonable period of time,” which is a standard expectation in physical therapy. The emergence and predicted growth in function-based payment models (Medicare) will demand treatment that offers a value proposition to payers and an outcome to patients.
D+WC offers medical record review which compares and contrasts a provider’s treatment to current best evidence. We also are masters at searching the clinical literature to identify current and emerging best practices and evidenced-based standards.