Dr Chris Bollen - Management plans for allied health practitioners

Video transcript

DESCRIPTION:

A man stands in front of a timber veneer wall. He has short brown hair and wears thin black-framed glasses and a blue suit jacket over a red and white pinstriped shirt and tie.

CHRIS BOLLEN:

Hi, my name is Chris Bollen. I'm a GP and I'm the Medical Advisor at ReturnToWorkSA.

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DESCRIPTION:

On a white background, a grey and red logo reads ‘Return to Work SA’. The SA lettering is coloured red and has a logo above it that features a red line above a lime green line that curve into each other to form a stadium shape.

TEXT: Management Plans

CHRIS BOLLEN:

We're here to talk today about the new management plans that allied health professionals are filling out when they are dealing with injured workers. What we want to look at is that why these management plans can be so crucial in improving outcomes for injured workers.

DESCRIPTION:

Black text on a white background reads: Team Communication. Further black text bullet points below read ‘General Practitioner’; ‘Case Manager’; and ‘Allied Health Professional’.

CHRIS BOLLEN:

They really are the mainstay of team communication between the GP, case managers, as well as the actual allied health professional. Management plans that allied health professionals submit into the Return to Work scheme are really fantastic because they provide a clinical opinion on a person's functional capacity. So it's actually telling us what people can do, not what they can't do.

So this is really, really important when you understand the health benefits of work, getting people back into the workplace in some capacity. We need to understand their function. GPs are fantastic at diagnosis and management of work injury, but we've got less training in understanding people's functional capacity. That's where we really value what allied health bring to the table in the way that they manage and treat the injured worker.

The management plans that are shared between health professionals and GPs help the GPs fill out the Return to Work certificates, which actually now have functional capacity on them. So it's really valued by GPs when a health professional shares the functional capacity and that can help the GP fill out the certificates.

So, overall, we really want to thank health professionals in sharing this information because it provides the input that a GP can use to inform the management of the injury. So thank you very much from all of us here at ReturnToWorkSA. I'd just like to let you know we're actually here to help you, and some of these changes, if you find anything too difficult, just give us a call because we're here to help you.

DESCRIPTION:

TEXT: Scheme Support (08) 8238 5757

The ‘Return to Work SA’ logo from earlier. Further grey text below reads ‘Return to work. Return to life.’

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