Pilot success – rolling out an online questionnaire as part of disability management

September 12, 2024

Even with the best in health prevention, disability claims are inevitable. Our personalized case management approach ensures that we assess plan members quickly, with the right resources identified as soon as possible. We’re continuously reviewing and refining our approach to develop new tools that can help improve plan member health. In 2022, we began piloting a psychosocial questionnaire for select disability claims. Here’s the pilot announcement we sent you back then.

The online questionnaire captured the psychological and sociological factors that could influence a plan member in their recovery. What were their circumstances, their challenges at home and work, and their lives generally?

Our goal for the pilot was twofold:

For mental health-related short-term disability (STD) claims we wanted to:

  • understand the influencing factors that impact claim durations, and
  • help your plan members return to work faster and healthier.

For long duration disability claims, we wanted to:

  • use specific criteria to identify plan members who may have an opportunity to return to full-time or part-time employment.
  • improve the information exchange process by digitizing the Plan Member Update (PMU) form. We send the PMU form to plan members on long duration claims annually to capture changes in health, function, and income.

The pilot is now complete and has yielded positive results. As a result, we’re rolling out the questionnaire more widely. In addition, as shared in the Digital disability at work flyer, the transition to the digital PMU has shown great progress. As of June 2024, 80% of plan members who received the questionnaire submitted it within 6 days.

The present flyer provides an overview of our STD claims pilot results and more details about the psychosocial questionnaire.

Innovation yields results

We’re committed to delivering the right early-stage health solutions for plan members most at risk. The online psychosocial questionnaire is making a difference and is a new innovation in our disability management toolkit. It can help get your plan members back to health faster – and lower your disability claims costs.

Questions? We’re here to help.

Please contact your Sun Life Group Benefits representative.