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SOCSO introduced the RTW Program in 2007 which is a comprehensive multidisciplinary biopsychosocial rehabilitation program for its Insured Persons who are experiencing disability due to accidents in the workplace or those claiming for invalidity. This rehabilitation program is unique as it involves the concept of ”disability management” in which each Insured Person who is referred to the program, is assigned to a Case Manager who is actively involved throughout the return to work process. The case manager acts as a mediator between the Insured Person and various stakeholders such as the employers, employees, family members, union and health care service providers. The program has shown remarkable results in reducing disability durations and also other qualitative benefits.
Methods
A retrospective study was conducted on records of the RTW Program participants (currently 3575 cases) and the workers claims due to workplace injury from January 2008 to June 2011. An analysis is being made based on the number of disability days due to the injury to compare those who have followed the RTW program and those who those who have not been monitored during the process of medical treatment and rehabilitation.
Results
Early results have shown that there are reductions in terms of disability durations for those who have completed the multidisciplinary biopsychosocial rehabilitation with the focus of return to work compared to those who have not been monitored during the process of medical treatment and rehabilitation. The final results of this study should be ready by December 2011.
Discussion
The findings of this study indicate that a Multidisciplinary Biopsychosocial Rehabilitation should be in place in a Social Accident Insurance/Workers Compensation in order to produce better rehabilitation outcome. Future studies shall have further breakdown based on the type of MSDs in order to have a more comparative perspective for different MSDs.