Alicia is a Rehabilitation Counsellor and has more than ten years’ experience in rehabilitation across Employment and Disability Services, Workers Compensation and Life Insurance. Additional to her current role, she continues to volunteer at lifeline as both a telephone crisis volunteer and mentor.
How would you best describe your role?
I have the privilege of supporting a team of clinical professionals who support claimants in their rehabilitation, after an illness or injury.
Most of our policies have a “Rehabilitation Expenses Benefit” allowing us to fund occupational rehabilitation and wellness support to claimants. Therefore, we work with claimants that require support recovering from a huge variety of things such as cancer, a car accident, a heart attack or support with their mental health. Depending on the case, and where the customer is on their recovery journey, we can be provide support to;
- Boost our customers wellbeing such as looking at their diet, sleep, exercise and pain management.
- Fund equipment to assist with return to work
- Gradually return to their previous role
- Help them find a new role, including supporting retraining if needed
- Link in with a business coach to grow their current business or start a new business.
What makes you most proud about the work you do?
I’m proud that we get to help our customers each and every single day. Our Rehabilitation programs are not compulsory to engage in and are at no costs to our customers. They are available at any time whilst a customer has a claim with us. Whilst it’s important we keep in mind the health benefits of good work, we also understand that wellness is important and that some customers may benefit from our programs even if they may not return to work. My team love getting to contact our customers and explain to them that we can offer them services and support additional to their income protection payments, at no cost to them.
What sets your rehab team apart?
Often in life insurance, the rehabilitation is managed by a customer’s claims consultant, who have an understanding of some rehabilitation programs that they may be able to access. At OnePath/Zurich all rehabilitation programs are managed directly by a Rehabilitation Consultant. What this means is that each and every program is tailored and specific to the individual, as the person co-ordinating it has often delivered the service themselves. In fact, in some cases we may look at offering more than one service at once. For example, we may fund a training course whilst also funding exercise physiology.
Since the acquisition of OnePath by Zurich, what has changed?
For us, helping a customer to return to wellness and work is the same whether a customer has a OnePath or Zurich Policy. For the last two years, OnePath has been piloting some rehab programs with great success; such as our Cancer Support Program. I am excited to be able to extend this service offering to our Zurich customers if they have cancer at claim time. I am also excited to be part of a global organisation, allowing us to leverage off rehabilitation and wellness offerings that Zurich have around the world.
What rehab case has stuck with you the most?
Often there is a misconception that recovery from an injury or illness is a step by step process – that the customer is moving forward and always recovering. Often this is not the case at all. There are ups and downs in every illness or injury that our customers experience – and we are certainly there along for the ride. This means that we often have to shift and change our rehabilitation and wellness supports. Sometimes our customers journey is not about recovery, it’s about learning to live with their permanent disability. I remember a case where I was supporting a man who was a Dentist, who had been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). He lodged his claim as he was having hand tremors and could no longer hold his instruments. After a few months, his medication had assisted with his symptoms and he was able to hold his instruments again for short periods of time. We organised for one of our service providers to meet with him to talk through how to structure his procedures during the day so he could see as many patients as possible. Over several years, his condition progressed and he wasn’t able to do this anymore. We started to talk about what it would look like for him to do work outside of dentistry – and what he would be capable of doing. We ended up supporting him to do some part time lecturing at a University, as well as discussing how he may be able to help out with his wife’s business and he had some sessions with one of our business coaches. As his condition progresses further, we will continue to review and shift our rehabilitation supports to suit his needs.
What are you most excited for in 2021?
I’m very excited to move into our beautiful new building in North Sydney! Apart from that, I think that 2021 will be a year of learning to live with COVID-19 until a vaccine becomes available. For us, that means continuing to ensure that we can deliver all our rehabilitation and wellness offerings in a safe way. I am also excited to continue to learn about Zurich’s global wellness supports so that we can constantly evolve the support we provide to ensure that it is best practice and high quality for our customers.