Derrick Amato, of The ClaimLab, writes in WorkCompWire:

Workers’ compensation has made meaningful progress in digitization, bill review sophistication, and clinical guideline adherence. Yet one of the system’s most costly failure points remains largely unresolved: the lack of operational and systemic approaches to identifying injured workers at risk of delayed recovery early enough to change outcomes...

Research from the Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI) and NCCI consistently shows that delayed recovery is strongly associated with factors such as fear avoidance, catastrophizing, workplace dissatisfaction, prior claim history, and psychosocial stressors... Yet these insights rarely translate into daily claims operations action.

Read the full article here. 

The WCRI studies he refers to include Importance of Psychosocial Factors for Physical Therapy Outcomes (2024) and the more recent Psychosocial Factors and Functional Outcomes Following Physical Therapy (2025).  Visit their pages on our website for more information, including details on how to get a copy!