How’s this for an opening line to my post:

Perspectives on workers compensation issues from Dr Peter Sharman – Occupational Physician.

Hopeful and hopeful is it not? Finally a practitioner putting it out there and standing up for a better Australian Worker’s compensation system.

It’ll be no surprise that Dr Sharman and I connected over a few tweets of frustration and WorkSafe/WorkCover hashtags. He’s been a fabulous support since, providing honest and open conversation about the primitive ways of the system, whilst expressing his frustration with not being able to help injured workers more. Well, now he is really helping injured workers and I believe it’s time for other practitioners to support him too. Peter has thrown open the topic and put it up for discussion on a fabulous blog platform. He’s also putting his views out there on how we can have a better quality system. I can’t wait to read his posts, they will be a huge support for me particularly now as I am heading back, once again, to conciliation to battle for my rightful compensation after a rejected part payment application (93cd) from my WorkSafe Agent (which now leaves me at 14 months with $0/0% support during my return to work process).

The literature is clear that people whose injuries are managed within a compensation system have worse outcomes, but why? Insurers would have you believe it is all because of fraud, secondary gain or that injured workers don’t want to get better. In reality it is more complex. Certainly there are issues about ’taking responsibility’  for one’s own recovery that can be lacking within a compensation system, but there are many other factors that affect the outcome. Important issues include stigmatisation of workers who put in claims and lack of access to appropriate treatment. The system often unreasonably questions a person’s genuineness, creating a response to prove there has been injury. The system of claims management remains adversarial. Responses include the development of secondary psychological illness which can be more disabling than the original injury. These issues can have dramatic effects on injured workers, i.e. Adding Insult to Injury….

…As a practitioner in private medical practice, I wanted to contribute to debate from my experience of the problems with the workers compensation system. Not only to raise issues, but to put forward solutions. That is difficult as a solo practitioner.

Here’s your chance practitioners, stand up, contribute and speak out. Demand a better Worker’s Compensation system.

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