ROI or is it ROE?

A recurring question during our meetings with cases managers is, “What is the ROI on patient education as part of the cost of workers’ compensation?” Maybe you are like me and you’re not sure how to make an assessment on the value of using every possible resource to help your injured worker recover.  Maybe you’d agree that Return on Investment is better understood as Return on Employee in the context of workers’ comp care. 

A quick search on Google turned up an interesting article by eLearning Partners about “9 Reasons Why Your Employees Are Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset.”  This link will take you the full article, but here are the highlights.

1. Essential to providing goods or services.

2. Employees are the first customer of any organization.

3. Employees give their 100 percent to any organization.

4. Employees are the face of an organization.

5. They are the nurturers of the organization.

6. Skilled people with knowledge.

7. Employees are the base of a strong and long-running organization.

8. Motivated employees make a significant difference.

9. Employees are major contributors to profits and worth of the organization.

Let’s think of it another way that is near and dear to case managers who are on the frontline managing cases.  Think about ROE as Return OF Employee not Return on Investment.  What is the cost of an employee that should get better, but never does simply because they do not know how?  

In my role as a book author interviewing recovering patients and as a Recovery Guide working with injured workers, I discovered that the emotional state of mind of the injured person has everything to do with whether they recover quickly or not at all.  Providing recovery guidance in the form for patient education has been a clear and well appreciated value-add to the experience of injured workers.  Knowing that they are not lost in the wilderness of recovery or forgotten by their coworkers and employer has clearly been seen to lift morale and deepen their commitment to get back to work. 

The anecdotal common sense of improved outcomes through the provision of patient education is easy to understand.  The hard part is assessing a dollar figure to the value of improved mindset, better nutrition, increased activity and meaningful rest.  It is hard to speak to the ROI of those benefits, but very easy, if not obvious, to understand the value in terms of ROE. 

Helping to educate an injured worker about the recovery process is something that doctors, physical therapists and caregivers have told us is critical.  At the same time, they qualify their comments recognizing that time constraints and the economics of their practice limit their ability to provide such services.  However, employers and payers in the workers’ compensation system have a vested interest in providing the best tools to return their injured workers to the best life possible after an injury.  Changing the focus from ROI to ROE yields better results not only in dollars but in the inestimable value of helping a human being get better faster and stay better longer. 

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