The Travelers Cos. Inc. on Tuesday announced that it has developed what it said is the first predictive model designed to reverse a sharp rise in chronic pain caused by workplace injuries.
The patent-pending Travelers Early Severity Predictor identifies the likelihood of injured employees developing chronic pain so that they can avoid it in recovery and reduce the need to use opioids or other painkillers.
Millions of workers are injured on the job each year and chronic pain interferes with an employee’s recovery in more than half of all serious injuries, Dr. Adam Seidner, national medical director at Travelers, said in a news release.
“When someone develops chronic pain, they are prescribed opioids or other painkillers more than 90 percent of the time,” he said. “Our goal is to work with injured employees and their doctors to eliminate or substantially reduce the need for painkillers that can slow their recovery or lead to devastating long-term addiction.”
The Travelers Early Severity Predictor has been applied in more than 20,000 cases since early 2015. Of those, more than 9,000 injured employees were identified as being at risk of developing chronic pain. These employees received a customized, sports medicine-like regimen of treatment precisely sequenced to aid and accelerate their recovery.
Injured employees who participated in the program in the past year have, on average, recovered and returned to work more quickly. They were also far less likely to receive a prescription for opioids, and when they did, it was typically a lower dosage or only for short-term use. At the same time, medical expenses, which cost American employers an average of nearly $40,000 per injury, were reduced by as much as 50 percent, Travelers said.
