Ian Bridgman

This month I am very pleased to welcome a contribution from Dr Kristin Tugman, who many of you may know. Dr Tugman has just launched her own consulting business, after building some great programs at some of the top disability insurance carriers in the US. The issues addressed are the same in every return-to-work situation, whether in Canada, […]

How about managing psychosocial factors! The longer any claim remains open, the less it has to do with the original medical condition. While medical recovery is often measured on a 6-month timeline—where the majority of conditions improve or resolve during this period—Longer term claims frequently tell a different story. For many conditions, individuals recover within […]

In the claim’s world, managing the ‘whole person’ not just a medical diagnosis has long been considered best practice. Whether you are concerned about mental health parity (in the US) or just the rising focus of mental health issues in the workplace, there are great reasons for taking a closer look at the whole individual behind the […]

Dr Les Kertay – Chief Psychologist at The Claim Lab Mental Health Crisis – What’s in a Number? Is there a mental health crisis?Yes, I think so. I base this on these premises: 1. There is a substantial degree of stress that people are feeling at work, and it is contributing to increased reports of […]

Ok let’s set a bar here…Serious medical conditions or injuries, whether at work or elsewhere, will result in disability or workers compensation claims, and our job in the insurance business is to support the individual in their time of need. Yet in every claim there is more than just a medical condition.Let’s look at an […]

The Impact Of Loneliness On Recovery This is the first of a three-part series on ‘Loneliness’ and the impact that we see it has on recovery from serious medical conditions or injuries.  For Part 1, we give you some background and we will provide more details on our approach in subsequent newsletters.  The Impact of Loneliness on […]

I have worked with a few disability insurers who promote the “Work is Healthy” philosophy in claim management both in the US and Canada, although it seems more prevalent in Canada. I was reminded of this on a recent business trip, when I was fortunate to be invited to present at the Claim Vantage User […]

On Mental Health Parity – It’s the right thing to do It’s time to recognize that the line between mental and physical health is arbitrary and an artifact of the way that we talk about it, and not something that has any reality. Think about it: the last time you felt sick with a cold or […]

As our claim best practice expert, Mark Foerster takes a strategic view on the operational impact of Biopsychosocial in claims management.If you missed Part 1, Click Here, or Part 2, Click Here…. Also, on December 5th at 1.00pm ET, we are taking part in a Webinar with Munich Re, discussing this very topic with input from, our […]

By Dr Les Kertay – What’s the Problem?… In our last column, we introduced the distinction between a biomedical approach to diagnoses and a biopsychosocial approach. We noted that some of the difficulty with current claims processes, in disability and in workers’ compensation, is that we attempt to apply a biomedical model to something that […]