Vocational rehabilitation is very important. A return to work should be the ultimate goal of everyone concerned with workers' compensation. The employee is certainly better off to be back on the job and earning wages, and an employer is better off to have a day's work in return for payment to an injured employee rather than to pay workers' compensation benefits. All of the research about rehabilitation suggests two things. One, rehabilitation efforts are most likely to be successful if they are begun early; and two, the most likely avenue of successful rehabilitation is a return to work with the same employer.

Many progressive employers are implementing an entire system of "disability management." Under such a program they do everything they can to bring disabled employees back to productive work as soon after the injury as possible.

Effective disability management can lower costs for employers and reduce the suffering of injured workers at the same time. More information about disability management is available from the Vocational Rehabilitation Division at (517) 322-1721.