Use social crowd funding to generate the capital necessary to support returning to work,
employee re-training, employer education, and community awareness. See:

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/business/crowdfunding-sites/

We are hearing much lately about millionaires and billionaires committed to placing their cronies into our government. Where are the millionaires/billionaires committed to advancing and supporting... more »

Provide Personal Positioning Devices for injured, recovering, or disabled employees. Rather than re-tasking the employee to something for which they are not suited, provide accommodations to allow them to return to their previous position.

Implementation of Personal Positioning Devices position and support the employee relative to the work, where normal ergonomic processes are unable to reorient the work to the employee.... more »

We are hearing from employers of an emerging practice called "task banks". Employers are developing a list of tasks and jobs that an injured employee is able to perform given his/her medical restrictions while transitioning back to into the workplace. The important thing is to keep the valued employee engaged. So say, for instance, an employee returning after cancer related surgery. They may not be able to perform all... more »

I think it would be workable to partner with current employers in the state to hire previous workers, e.g. retirees, or people who are disabled, but are fully capable to do minimal work, and make a considerable contribution to the workforce. It would be functional for employers to tap into the experience and training of those returning to work to benefit their companies.

Stop sticking the next available disabled person into some job without getting very clear what that person is actually adept at. Your

wasting their time and talent, and your creating a revolving door that keeps jobs empty! Celebrate a person's true skill sets and capabilities, and they might just thrive at work!

From a Medical prospective, via an Orthopedic Surgeon of 30+ years, Return to Work begins on date of injury--- with the appropriate diagnosis that, in turn, determines the most appropriate, evidence-based care and treatment. If the diagnosis is incorrect, then early RTW leads to re-injury, increased costs and unnecessary patient suffering.

In 2015, the National Academy of Medicine reported that most people will receive... more »

There are many organizations that advocate for disabled persons. Very few have addressed the issue of employment and effective reasonable accommodations in full time let alone "partial" work. Even State VR counselors are not aware of how important the request for Reasonable Accommodations can be in getting a person back into the workforce full-time, "partially" or "part-time". A partnership between the state/federal... more »

In Indiana a person with a disability can go to Voc Rehab to be taught how to work around their disability and still get the job done. Or they could. I went to a FSSA meeting last week and they are now going to make Voc Rehab categorize the severity their consumers disabilities and the worst ones will get served first. So that means that once again those with disabilities are going to be discriminated against as far as... more »

I have worked with some individuals where the need for ongoing quality and affordable health care and the fear of not being able to secure it once going back to work is the main obstacle that prevents individuals from securing sustainable employment. If this concern could be further minimized, we would see a positive impact.

We must face the fact that injured workers are percieved to be a burden at every level.Once injured you have only few choices to RTW.
The reason is that the system has been misused by a few and the employers live in fear.
If you RTW you will take the chance of losing benefits because you tried. If you are not successful and become ill or RTW before you are ready, you are on your own. The Doctors will return you just because... more »

According to the National Governors Association, Principles for State-Federal Relations, as accessed on THIS site as of April 13, 2017:

https://www.nga.org/cms/home/federal-relations/nga-policy-positions/page-ec-policies/col2-content/main-content-list/principles-for-state-federal-rel.html

2.4 Designing Federal-State Programs. To provide maximum flexibility and opportunity for innovation, as well as foster administrative... more »

The injured/disabled employee restrictions are the same whether at home or at work. Take the physician out of the RTW/SAW decision and instead the physician should only list restrictions based on the medical evaluation. The employer then determines transitional work. Remove the "may not rtw" option from the physician form. The employer determines rtw with or without restrictions based on the physicians' data and the physical... more »

We have been working on a solution for several years in solving worker transition problems and unemployment. We have been very, very successful. You can check out Project Starfish and we are out of MIT Startup Exchange ( Top startups at MIT ) www.pstarfish.org , and if you want to check out the results, go to www.pstarfish.org/accolade ; For Job seekers please go and watch the 4 videos and 2 audios on www.pstarfish.org/ForJobSeekers... more »

I have a disease that attacks my body and I never know when, which has cost me many jobs. I miss working, being social and earning an income. I am however, an artist, so what and how can i utilize my ability to make a living and survive specially when I'm going through the months, now years of debilitating illness, surgeries, etc. Employers don't have space, time for someone like me who misses so much work. It's very... more »

The objective here is to return the injured worker to pre-injury status. Part of bring the injured worker to pre-injury status in many cases is to bring them back to work slowly, initially in a modified capacity.

In my opinion, the issue of returning an injured worker to modified duty cannot be looked at globally. We cannot think that it is the same to return an injured laborer to modified duty as it is to return an... more »