With several states now allowing all employees, not just first responders, to file mental health-related workers' compensation claims, industry professionals are pondering a potential new challenge. What happens if an employee becomes so concerned about AI taking their job that it has an extraordinary effect on their mental well-being?
While it's a fascinating question, the reality is that we haven't seen any evidence of this type of situation occurring in case law thus far. Instead, most workers' compensation professionals are focusing on the positive aspects of AI, using it to streamline the multitude of time-consuming, behind-the-scenes tasks that have slowed down insurers, companies and lawyers for years.
This refocus on the positives of human-supported AI in business combined with recent rollbacks on AI-related layoffs could actually lower stress on employees, as well as reduce the potential for those AI-rooted mental-health related claims.
Job replacement fears allayed
While early employment trends stoked fears of AI replacing human workers, we're now seeing a vastly different scenario play out as companies start to realize that AI, while powerful, has its limitations.
Major employers like Ford and IBM, which conducted AI-related layoffs, rehired employees across engineering, human resources, and customer service this summer to fix quality issues that AI could not address, according to a recent CNBC article. Another report shows that 55% of business leaders who made employees redundant after deploying AI now admit they made the wrong decision.
As companies roll back AI-related layoffs, the renewed emphasis is on creating a workplace where AI and humans co-exist. That reframing is reducing stress for some employees rather than adding to it. Workers are using AI to complete more tasks faster. The end result is that some employees can now spend more time interacting with humans and less time writing emails and staring at computer screens.
Yet while the "AI is taking your job" storyline has subsided in some instances, the case law regarding AI and mental health in the workplace has yet to be written. Workers' compensation boards in most states are very claimant-friendly, and with AI changing so much about how employees do their job, it's within the realm of possibility that we may see stress-induced claims related to AI pop up in the coming months and years.
Benefits Outweigh the Concerns
Despite the negative headlines related to job replacement, AI presents benefits to all parties involved in a workers' compensation claim.
To see how, consider the common denominator in any claim: paperwork. Claimants, claims professionals, and attorneys must comb through thousands of pages of incident reports, medical summaries, specialist notes, imaging studies, surgical records, physical therapy and rehabilitation notes, return-to-work forms, and disability status certifications. Doing so manually typically took months.
AI now expedites the process by reviewing and summarizing reams of digitized files and pulling out the most pertinent information. Lawyers and claims professionals can search for specific terms within those documents to refine their case. These types of efficiencies accelerate the entire litigation process, potentially leading to faster resolution.
AI also benefits injured workers. Some states require workers to show proof of their job search after they've recovered from an incident. With AI, workers can enter their skills, experience, and medical restrictions, then run queries to find jobs that match their unique needs. Carriers and third-party administrators are doing the same, using AI to assist claimants in the job-search process.
For corporate risk managers, AI insights can help develop stronger workplace safety programs. An employer can review its claims database, look for repeat patterns and determine whether injuries are more common at a certain job site, in a specific role or at a certain geographic location. They can then dig into the root causes of incident reports and adjust protocols. If data shows, for instance, that workers are getting hurt due to improper lifting, risk managers can enhance their safe-lifting training program by providing more specific and frequent education, thereby improving worker health and well-being.
AI is also shaping litigation strategy. Attorneys are analyzing historical claims and litigation outcomes with AI to identify trends in settlements, dismissals, and case resolutions. These insights provide additional context that claims professionals and legal teams can use to evaluate their past results and tweak their case strategy going forward.
Human Judgment Remains Vital
While AI can support many steps of the workers' compensation process, it does not replace professional judgment. AI is most effective at analyzing data and identifying patterns. Claims professionals and legal teams should remain in the loop at all times, review all AI outputs for accuracy, and make the final decision whenever data conflicts. The strongest results come from combining AI-driven insights with human expertise.
The fear around AI and job replacement is real, and it may someday lead to a mental health claim from an injured worker. Fears, however, have a way of working themselves out over the long run. We saw this when states first began legalizing medical marijuana. The fear was that it would forever change workers' compensation. The reality was that the legislative changes had a more measured impact.
It's too early to know how much AI will change workers' compensation, but as the fear of job replacement starts to subside, professionals should focus on the positives. When AI increases efficiency, we can give workers what they deserve: a safer workplace and a faster resolution to their claims.
