60 Tips in 60 Minutes: Meet the Panelists of an NWCDC Perennial Favorite
When a professional athlete is injured during a game, they’re not even off the field before their trauma is professionally assessed. It’s part of the way that teams protect their valued assets and start planning for recovery immediately. Employers across a broad spectrum of industries can benefit from a similar approach.
Medical mismanagement in the claims process is a hot-button topic at this year’s National Workers’ Compensation & Disability Conference® and Expo.
NWCDC will have prominent industry professionals that know how important it is to utilize cost-containment business strategies pre-injury.
Mismanagement hazards can be anything from knowing when to get an X-ray, to knowing the proper use for medical cannabis.
Seven leaders of top workers’ compensation programs across the country will convene for “60 Tips in 60 Minutes – Avoiding Medical Mismanagement’s Claims Fallout,” to discuss 60 of their best strategies for avoiding improper handling of a claim and ultimately healing workers faster.
The session will take place on Friday, November 8 from 8:30 a.m. to 9:45 a.m.
Kicking off the final day of the conference will be panelists Marcos Iglesias, Kim Radcliffe, Dawn Watkins, Anas Al-Hamwi, Monica Manske, Phil Walls, led by moderator Stuart Colburn.
Marcos Iglesias
Dr. Marcos Iglesias, vice president and chief medical director, Travelers, is a physician executive with over 25 years of vast experience including workers’ compensation and disability treatment, evaluation and insurance leadership. He develops innovative disability management solutions that focus on early intervention to return workers to the active, productive, and uncompromised conditions that they were in pre-injury.
Iglesias was also a panelist at last year’s NWCDC, speaking on the complex science behind marijuana and the complications that come with using it for medical and recreational purposes.
“How do you apply [existing research] when you have studies that are 10 years old or even 20 years old? It’s a different drug altogether,” he told R&I in 2018 about the outstanding marijuana debate.
Stuart Colburn
Attorney Stuart Colburn is a shareholder of law firm Downs Stanford. Together with Iglesias, Colburn presented last year’s popular session, “Marijuana, Workers’ Compensation and Disability: What’s the Science and the Law?”
“Federal law says you are not allowed to pay for marijuana or use marijuana. And yet we have 6 states that require an insurance company to pay for or reimburse an injured worker for marijuana,” Colburn said to R&I prior to the conference. “How do we resolve that conflict for an employer and an insurance company?”
Colburn will act as the moderator for the “60 Tips in 60 Minutes” session.
He has extensive experience in all phases of dispute resolution before the Division of Worker’s Compensation and in district courts across the state of Texas.
He is active in the workers’ compensation community, championing many projects including the education of attorneys, adjusters and employers for workers’ compensation and bad faith allegation. He is certified by the Texas Department of Insurance as a continuing education provider.
To prove his commitment to service, The State Bar of Texas Workers’ Compensation Section awarded Colburn “The Barb-wire Award” for his contributions to workers’ compensation.
Kim Radcliffe
Kim Radcliffe is a 10-year employee of One Call, starting as vice president of clinical operations for Align Networks (now One Call Physical Therapy) in 2006, becoming president of physical therapy in 2014.
Now as senior vice president of clinical, Kim leads a multi-specialty team of experts to focus on comprehensive, patient-centric and injury-specific oversight to ensure the delivery of efficient care and desired results.
“It’s critical that there is some effort at standardization using proven evidence-based recovery paths.So whether it’s a knee injury or a finger injury, the treatment modalities and the providers involved will be different, but the phases of recovery are the same,” said Radcliffe about recovery approaches in April 2019.
She is credited with the creation of Align Networks Gold Standard Review program, a clinical oversight program that monitors quality of care, treatment patterns, utilization and appropriateness of care.
Anas Al-Hamwi
Anas Al-Hamwi is the senior director of safety & injury management in Operations for Walgreen Co., the Retail USA division of Walgreens Boots Alliance, the global healthcare organization headquartered in Deerfield, Illinois.
Al-Hamwi is responsible for keeping the company’s employees and customers safe and provide quality treatment and resources for injury recovery.
He is a member of the Risk Management Society, Claims and Litigation Management Alliance, and was recently added to the Board of Directors for the National Safety Council, a nonprofit organization with a mission is to eliminate preventable deaths at work, in homes, communities, and on the road through education and advocacy.
Al-Hamwi earned a Doctor of Medicine Degree from Damascus University in Syria.
Dawn Watkins
Dawn Watkins is the Director of Integrated Disability Management for the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD); the second largest school district in the nation.
Since 2006, she has led one of the largest self-insured workers’ compensation programs in California for approximately 70,000 employees.
In 2008, Risk & Insurance issued Watkins the “Risk Innovator” award for outstanding leadership and awarded LAUSD with a Teddy Award honorable mention for excellence in workers’ compensation.
“If an employee can’t get the care they need, we will step outside of the system. Our emphasis is on quality wherever it may be,” she told R&I in 2014.
Watkins holds a Bachelor of Science degree, a California Self Insured Administrators certificate, and multiple designations in risk management and human resources. She is a frequent speaker at risk management conferences and events.
Monica Manske
Monica Manske is the senior manager of workers’ compensation, employee safety and ergonomics at Rochester Regional Health. She is a 20-year human resources and risk management industry professional.
She spent ten years in the insurance industry before transitioning to the healthcare sector. Through her operational leadership she has overseen workers’ compensation, employee leave and benefit programs, as well as ergonomics and employee safety.
Manske and her team at Rochester Regional Health were recognized for their outstanding commitment to workers’ compensation with a 2017 Teddy Award. They won by taking a specific approach to safety, which will be a similar approach encouraged at NWCDC: engage employees to teach and encourage safe behaviors rather than punishing them for lapses.
Phil Walls
Phil Walls is the chief clinical officer for myMatrixx.
He is a clinical pharmacist with over 40 years of experience as pharmacy benefit management and workers’ compensation. He also has expertise in pain management, side effects of medications, managing overutilization, and drug abuse.
Walls was a champion in developing myMatrixx’s clinical program, Get Ahead of the Claim. The program is designed to mitigate risk early in the claim process and provide positive outcomes for injured workers while reducing cost for clients.
“Our approach to formulary management is what we refer to as phase of care,” Walls told Risk and Insurance in 2019.
“Where we’re looking at the point and time of the claim to help our clients make formulary decisions because what is appropriate right after an injury may not be appropriate six months later and vice versa.”
Walls is a published author and frequent speaker on clinical topics in workers’ compensation.
Secure your seat now for this can’t-miss-session, and never mismanage a medical claim again. &
About the National Workers’ Compensation and Disability Conference® & Expo:
As the largest National Workers’ Comp and Disability Conference for more than 25 years, NWCDC offers endless opportunities that will propel your workers’ comp and disability management programs forward. With the biggest Expo in the industry, you’ll be able to touch, compare and contrast the newest solutions from leading vendors in every category, and gain knowledge on-the-go at in-depth sponsored sessions on the show floor. Additionally, NWCDC offers valuable networking opportunities so you can make important contacts and share strategies with your peers.
You can also customize your learning experience with breakout sessions in six distinct program tracks: Claims Management, Medical Management, Program Management, Disability Management, Legal/Regulatory, and Technology. Plus, you’ll hear from Risk & Insurance’s Teddy Award winners for excellence in lowering workers’ comp risk.
Learn more about NWCDC and special savings for Risk & Insurance® subscribers here.