Comprehensive, Timely Medical Care
We know that maintaining positive relationships with other medical specialists and patients are paramount in managing the health and well-being of employers. WorkMed offers comprehensive occupational care at its facility, including physical and occupational therapy, lab and x-ray. Our providers have extensive expertise in treating work-related injuries and illnesses.
WorkMed provides occupational medicine, Physical Rehab Services, physical and occupational therapy, radiology and lab services – all at one location. Our coordinated approach to injury management means more effective service and more timely delivery of information, making stay at work and return to work strategies more effective.
A WorkMed nurse or medical assistant will communicate with the employer and will e-mail or fax an M-1 after each clinic visit. Our medical providers are easily accessible and can be reached via a phone call or through e-mail.
The WorkMed Occupational Health Clinic is open Monday-Friday from 7:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. WorkMed’s Clinic is staffed to handle all appointments including walk-in appointments for acute care. Registered nurses triage acute care to the appropriate medical care provider. Twenty-four hour coverage is provided through the St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center’s Emergency Room. Emergency Room staff understands work related injury and illness and communicate effectively with WorkMed for all necessary follow-up appointments.
Occupational and Disability Management Consulting
WorkMed provides occupational and disability management consulting to employers, including designing safety initiatives, reviewing loss runs to determine cost savings, resolving resolve open cases, conducting ergonomic evaluations, and developing educational interventions to improve health and safety.
Case Reviews
WorkMed providers and nursing staff are available to review occupational health cases and help employers and insurers determine the best next steps with difficult cases. Our Fitness for Duty and Independent Medical Exams are especially useful for managing cases.
Claims Review
At the request of the provider, employer, insurance carrier, our certified Occupational Health Nurse will review cases to coordinate the care of the client.
Nurse Case Management
The Occupational Health Nurse will coordinate the efforts of the health care team with the goal of returning the client to pre-illness or pre-injury function or easing the multiple burdens of chronic and terminal conditions. This includes the mobilization of appropriate resources for care over the course of the clients’ illness, making sure that quality care is delivered in a cost-effective manner.
Program Oversight
WorkMed can provide program oversight to employers who have their own occupational health nurses by writing nursing protocols, providing onsite medical treatment, and offering continuing education and safety program reviews.
Pre-Placement Examinations can be customized to meet the specific needs of employers. The WorkMed professionals who perform these exams have completed certification programs that meet state and federal OSHA Standards. A standard exam includes:
- Comprehensive medical history
- Screening of back and upper extremities
- Vision Test
- Vital Signs
- Focused medical examination based on the individual’s job requirements
Customized components that may be added to the standard exam include:
- Lifting assessment and functional capacity assessment
- Department of Transportation (DOT) physicals
- DOT and non-DOT drug testing
- Audiogram, including compliance with the hearing conservation program*
- Pulmonary function test and respiratory clearance evaluation (performed by professionals certified by the Harvard School of Public Health and in full compliance with OSHA Standards).
- Medical surveillance compliance to include chest x-ray, lead testing, asbestos, TB, hepatitis and other components as needed.
- Other individualized components, including simulated work environment testing based on the needs of employer.
*performed by professionals certified by the Council for Accreditation in Occupational Hearing and in full compliance with OSHA Standards.
WorkMed’s Independent Medical Exam (IME) service can help you:
- Clarify causal relation
- Define current medical status
- Assess maximal medical improvement
- Confirm diagnosis and treatment
- Evaluate prognosis
- Assess work capacity
- Clarify ‘non-medical’ issues
- Conduct medical record review
WorkMed’s clear and concise written opinions are founded on a thorough review of the pertinent medical and scientific facts, available data and relevant peer-reviewed literature.
WorkMed’s Medical Director, Jonathan Torres, MD, MPH is a board certified and residency-trained in occupational and environmental medicine and has extensive experience in determining causal relationships and using evidence-based principles to evaluate a patient’s prognosis and work capacity. This expertise makes him uniquely qualified to evaluate medical conditions related to occupational exposures and musculoskeletal disorders. Dr. Torres understands the importance of a high-quality IME in managing the medical, administrative, and legal costs of claims.
Fitness for Duty evaluations can be extremely helpful to the employer in the following three situations:
- Evaluating the employee at risk of aggravating their medical condition by returning to work sooner than medically appropriate, increasing the employer’s liability.
- Evaluating the employee who remains out of work for their medical condition longer than necessary, potentially resulting in higher costs to the employer.
- Evaluating the ability and safety of an individual who is having difficulty working due to a medical condition.
WorkMed’s goal is to help employers decrease the likelihood of an employee having a longer than expected disability, as well as reducing the likelihood of injury when the employee returns to their normal work duties.
WorkMed’s testing and evaluation services include:
- Audiometric hearing tests for compliance with OSHA’s Occupational Noise Exposure standard.
- Pulmonary function tests and respiratory clearance evaluations for use when determining if an employee can wear a respirator.
- Blood drawing for compliance with OSHA’s medical surveillance standards.
- Urine collections for drug testing in compliance with state and/or federal standards. WorkMed can provide employers with assistance in setting up drug testing procedures, with medical review officer functions and by performing urine collection for drug testing.
- Post exposure follow-up in compliance with OSHA’s Bloodborne Pathogen standards.
- Immunization needs. WorkMed can provide employees with immunizations that range from those that are more routine, such as tetanus or Hepatitis B to the more exotic immunizations such as typhoid, encephalitis and other immunizations necessary to travel through other parts of the world.
- PPD testing for tuberculosis.
- Ergonomic evaluations of work sites. Assessment and evaluation of ergonomics at a worksite are conducted by Certified Occupational Health Nurses and written reports are provided that recommend realistic solutions that can make a difference.
- DOT evaluations.
- School bus driver examinations.
WorkMed accesses up-to-date information for the specific country the individual will be traveling to provide information and required immunizations for admittance to that country.
We provide protection from:
- Yellow Fever
- Traveler’s Diarrhea
- Malaria
- Hepatitis A
- Hepatitis B
- Typhoid
- Measles, Mumps, Rubella
- Tetanus / Diphtheria
- Rabies
- Motion Sickness
- Meningococcal Meningitis
- Japanese Encephalitis
If you’re traveling out of the United States, you’ll want the best and latest advice on how to protect your health during your trip. We have the resources to clarify which immunizations and other precautions you’ll need to take to enter any country and stay healthy during your visit.
WorkMed will provide the immunizations and prescriptions you’ll need based on where you will be traveling and can also advise you on how to best protect yourself from contaminated food and water, intense sun, insect bites and accidents. Furthermore, WorkMed will provide information on the precautions you should take when traveling with children, and can inform you about the risk of theft, assault and terrorism in the countries you will be visiting.
