No matter how safe an employer tries to make the worksite, accidents can still happen. The National Safety Council (NSC) reports that a disabling injury occurs every 1.3 seconds in the U.S. (more than 63,000 every day), and the Social Security Administration predicts that 3 out of 10 workers entering the workforce today will acquire some type of disability before they retire.

Getting injured employees back to work quickly—and providing positive communication and assistance during the rehabilitation process—has always been an important aspect of successful workers' compensation programs. Research consistently shows that injured employees whose companies offer return-to-work programs recover faster, are more satisfied with their care, return to their full-duty jobs sooner, and are released from medical care earlier than if no return-to-work programs are in place.

In addition to positively impacting employee morale and productivity, effective return-to-work programs can result in lower premium rates—an important consideration given the rising medical and benefit costs associated with workers' compensation. The NSC reports that a single work-related disabling injury costs an employer an average of $48,000. The National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) estimates, based on 2009 data, that medical costs comprise 58 percent of the overall costs of a lost-time claim, and that number keeps climbing. (In fact, the number has risen 11 percent in the past 20 years.) High medical and pharmaceutical costs are driving this hike, but economic conditions—including workers worried about returning to jobs with an uncertain future—are supporting these increases.