Advisors are giving a cautious thumbs-up to a new “attendance support” product, recently launched by Sun Life Financial Group’s group benefits division and Medisys Health Group Inc.

The product is designed to help employers manage the cost of absenteeism. It focuses on helping employee and employer resolve the cause of the absence, instead of merely tracking absences so benefits cheques can be issued. Clients who are employers may want to learn about this approach.

In late 2005, Sun Life and Medisys formed a strategic alliance to offer the product, which they are calling “one of a kind,” to the group benefits industry. “We’re taking a fresh look at absences — looking much more holistically,” says Annette Gibbs, vice president of group life and disability claims for Sun Life in Toronto. “This is the first attempt to look at absences from a proactive perspective — opposed to advocating sickness.”

Work and health

The basis for this approach, says Gibbs, is the view that work itself is an integral part of health. “We’re not aware of any other companies looking at this from the same resolution-based perspective,” she says.

At the outset, the product looks like a type of “absentee-control program,” says Zoltan Barzso, president of Accurate Design Benefits in Mississauga, Ont. However, he says, if this product really does reflect “a wellness initiative, that will be good for any company group benefits client.”

Providing early intervention — as this product promises to do — will be welcomed by the industry and its clients, says Gary McLeod, executive vice president of PPI Financial Group in Toronto.

The basic elements of the package include:

> Web-based attendance software to help managers report absences;

> initial contact provided by Medisys nurses to assess the medical, personal or workplace issues involved;

> ongoing case management by a variety of health professionals, such as nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and psychologists;

> referral to Sun Life “health management consultants” who will provide rehabilitation services;

> if the absence is caused by a workplace dispute, referral to mediation services provided by Sun Life partner WarrenShepell, a national company that provides employee assistance programs;

> managing the shift to long-term absence when necessary.

Medisys brings a national network of health professionals to the partnership with Sun Life, including 600 full-time staff and 700 health professionals in Calgary, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, as well as affiliated clinics in other cities.

“We’ve developed our expertise over 18 years of working with some of Canada’s largest companies,” says Dr. Sheldon Elman, Medisys’ Montreal-based CEO and president. “We’re focused on encouraging people to work.”

Elman is pleased about teaming his company’s services with a major insurance company. The combination of medical expertise with extensive back-end knowledge of the intricacies of the insurance business will deliver value to group benefits clients, he says.

Cost will probably be a concern for group benefits clients. But, McLeod says, the program could prove to be “tremendously cost-effective.”

One of the key products to which Sun Life clients will gain access is Medgate, the company’s trademarked absentee reporting software, which provides Web-based, real-time tracking, says Glenn Carmen, Medisys’ Toronto-based vice president of disability management services.

Barzso says many of his group benefits customers will welcome Medgate. Their managers are too preoccupied to keep in contact with absent employees and then fill out the proper forms, he says, “This way, the manager can go online, and Medisys can amalgamate the data.”

Information sharing

With sensitive medical and personal information changing hands among Medisys medical personnel, Sun Life and, ultimately, Sun Life clients who are employers, Barzso questions whether the product will be compliant with new privacy legislation.

Gibbs says employees must sign a specific authorization allowing the sharing of information between the two companies. Without that authorization, she adds, no information can be relayed.

Barzso is also cautious about the product’s marketing promises. For example, he would like to know what providing “the right health strategies” means.

However, product elements such as initial phone contact by a registered nurse and the high-touch approach is “good stuff,” he says. “One of the problems with absentees is that, after a while, a mindset develops that they’re disabled. They stop trying to become rehabilitated.”

If someone shows concern that an employee gets better and returns to work, the person will be more motivated to recover, he says: “This prevents malingering.”

@page_break@Sun Life will also provide consultants to help clients assess their organizational health situation. There can be many instances in which the cause of an employee’s absence is not medical, says Gibbs. Instead, there are workplace issues.

For example, she says, a strained relationship between a manager and employee can lead to stress. In those situations, she says, Medisys would refer the file back to Sun Life.

The product also promises to provide clients with actuarial-based “predictive modelling” to help group benefits clients project their needs and carry out budgeting based on those projections. Complex absentee claims are rated based on factors such as occupation, gender and diagnosis to provide a projection regarding the employee’s recovery.

Although insurance is always underwritten based on actuarial tables, says McLeod, he expects the Sun Life/Medisys predictive modelling will be a refinement that will provide more data for assessing and working with claims.

Setting up this product with one of your employer group benefits clients will take a minimum of six weeks. In that time, Sun Life and Medisys will provide the client and its managers with training.

The customer service agreement and billing is initially issued by Medisys, but both it and Sun Life will be working together to provide integrated service through the mutual referral process, says Gibbs. IE