Intracorp's Comprehensive Case Management Program Delivers Significant Improvements Over Traditional Approaches

Intracorp has dramatically enhanced its impact on the workers' compensation and disability management industry with a new approach to case management which promotes consistent delivery of all aspects of medical and disability management within a single, comprehensive program. By integrating its core competencies in bill review and case management, Intracorp is able to offer demonstrable medical and return-to-work outcomes.

"Traditional case management programs use time-based triggers to indicate the next level of required intervention," says Fred Scardellette, vice president of Disability Management product development and marketing for Intracorp. "Our program improves upon the status quo by bringing clinical and vocational expertise, technology and data mining and analysis together in a more programmatic approach to case management. We've established outcomes-focused triggers and optimal triage protocols that determine which mode of our expert intervention to deploy – and when. This allows our clinical experts to apply the best possible strategy to the case as soon as we receive it – and to execute this strategy for the duration of the case."

To determine the impact of the program, Intracorp compared the results of customers who have implemented the more comprehensive, programmatic model to those customers who take a more traditional approach to case management, in which claims are flagged for intervention only after they have become a concern to the payor.

Customers who have applied a comprehensive approach have shown a 40 percent improvement in disability duration as well as a 20 percent improvement in lost-time savings compared to Intracorp's other customers. The company's comprehensive model has also delivered 22 percent higher network utilization. Many Intracorp customers have further leveraged Intracorp's best-practice model to hone in on specific injury areas; these results likewise show dramatic improvement. High-cost injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome, which typically carry more than 100 days in lost time, have benefited from Intracorp's approach more than three-fold. Back injuries, the most frequently occurring condition, improved by 30 percent under the comprehensive model.

Intracorp's market-leading approach to case management encompasses all claims, regardless of the line of business – workers' compensation, auto, or short- and long-term disability – and strengthens the linkages among all case management components. Claims enter a central intake unit either by Internet, EDI, e-mail, fax or regular mail. Case data is assimilated into Intracorp's proprietary decision support tools, which process the information against customer-specific triggers and case handling protocols and then the case is triaged to the appropriate mode of intervention. Case managers quickly channel injured or ill individuals to Intracorp's broad-based network of providers to achieve maximum network penetration. Data is automatically transferred into Intracorp's sophisticated case management software, ICMS®, where case managers – either telephonically or remotely – access the information. These vocational and clinical experts manage cases with Intracorp's proprietary guidelines tools as well as other resources contained in the company's online Case Manager ToolboxSM, accessed via www.intracorp.com.

"While we've always been committed to delivering the best possible outcomes for our customers, this model truly revolutionizes how we – and others – approach case management moving forward," says Scardellette. "We're looking beyond single-event interventions and focusing on ways we can best impact the case – whether via telephonic or onsite case management, physician advisor or independent medical evaluation, vocational assessment or retrospective utilization review – for as long as it remains open. Combining the clinical expertise of our national case management team with state-of-the-art software and decision support solutions, Intracorp is better prepared to deliver the optimal medical and financial outcomes demanded by our customers."

Intracorp, 1601 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19192. Tel: 215-761-7100; Fax: 215-761-5538.