Psychological claims management is becoming more person-centred. Here’s where coaching fits.
Recovery at work is rarely a neat path from diagnosis to treatment to work.
Rather, it’s a process of rebuilding health, confidence, identity, relationships and capacity - while also navigating workers compensation systems that require specific processes, decisions, services, and actions.
For injured and ill workers, this can be a huge burden, and recovery timeframes can far exceed what was originally expected.
A new Australian review now offers useful evidence for how we can handle case management better.
Commissioned by Safe Work Australia and undertaken by researchers at the Institute for Safety, Compensation and Recovery Research (ISCRR), the recently released Review of Best Practice in Psychological Claims Management (1) was developed to inform an update of the Australia’s Taking Action Framework (2).
Amongst other recommendations, its central message was resoundingly clear: psychological claims management should be person-centred.
(Importantly, whilst the ICSCRR’s research centred around work related psychological claims in Australia, it’s findings could also apply to physical injuries or illness, as well as disability insurance, sickness benefit or income protection systems. Put simply, the architecture in these systems may differ, but the human challenge remains the same: how do we coordinate treatment, compensation, rehabilitation and work without allowing the person to be consumed by the extensive administrative process?)
The answer? Make it person-centred.
The challenge? How to do this in practice.
What does person-centred claims management actually mean?
Person-centred practice is often described as placing the individual at the centre of planning, care and support. In practice, it means understanding the person’s values, circumstances, beliefs, strengths and goals, then enabling them to participate meaningfully in decisions that affect their recovery (2).
It does not mean that every preferred outcome can be granted or that legal and clinical responsibilities disappear. Claims systems still need to determine eligibility, coordinate evidence, manage entitlements and make defensible decisions, however person-centred practice changes how those responsibilities are carried out. It shifts the worker from being the subject of the process to a genuine participant within it.
To make this happen, a person centred claims process requires:
clear, timely and accessible communication
respect for the worker’s knowledge of their own life and work
meaningful choice wherever choice is possible
shared planning rather than predetermined pathways
attention to psychological safety and the risk of further harm, and
support that reflects the person’s current capacity and stage of recovery.
Put simply, person-centred recovery is designed with someone, not simply delivered to them.
The tension inside every return to work or claim system
Claims and rehabilitation systems rely upon structure.
A worker may be assessed, diagnosed, referred, reviewed and case-conferenced.
Plans are documented.
Decisions are made, and
Progress is measured.
Many of these steps are necessary.
But the cumulative experience can leave the injured or ill worker feeling that recovery is happening around them, reducing the very autonomy and confidence that recovery requires (2, 3).
Importantly, this is not a failure unique to one organisation or country - it is a design tension found wherever health, work, insurance and regulation intersect.
The question is: if a designated process needs to be followed how can we ensure this doesn’t remove agency from the affected worker?
Why agency, identity and confidence matter
Returning to work following injury or illness is not just a functional milestone, it may involve rebuilding a sense of competence, renegotiating identity and deciding what safe and sustainable work now looks like.
A 2025 scoping review by Green et al., examined return to work experiences for people with common mental disorders across disability-based insurance systems, and found that supportive relationships, structured rehabilitation, empowerment, meaningful engagement and identity reconstruction were important features of vocational recovery (3).
Similarly, a longitudinal study of 410 workers’ compensation claimants with psychological or upper-body musculoskeletal injuries by Andersen et al (2025) found that self-efficacy measured 4 to 6 months after injury was associated with improved return to work outcomes 6 months later (4).
Importantly, this does not mean that confidence and agency alone determines a recovery outcome.
Workload, job control, workplace relationships, suitable duties, financial security, treatment, organisational culture and system behaviour can all enable or restrict recovery.
What is does mean however, is that a worker’s internal sense of capacity should not be treated as a peripheral concern - rather it is central to the recovery process.
Where professional coaching is recommended
Professional coaching is built around partnership, and offers workers a safe and structured conversational coaching practice that promotes self exploration, automony, and structured goal setting toward a self selected outcome.
The International Coaching Federation’s competencies require coaches to understand the person within their context, establish trust and safety, respect autonomy, and help the client translate learning and insight into goals and action (5) – all beneficial aspects with respect to recovery and return to work.
Coaching can create structured space for a worker to:
define what recovery and sustainable work mean to them
clarify values, priorities, strengths and boundaries
identify personal, workplace and systemic barriers
rebuild confidence and return to work self-efficacy
prepare for conversations with managers, clinicians or claims professionals
explore options and accommodations without being pushed towards a predetermined answer
turn insight into practical, achievable action, and
respond constructively to setbacks without treating recovery as a linear process.
Different roles within one recovery system
Coaching should not replace the services already doing essential work.
Clinical treatment is necessary to can assess and treat psychological symptoms
Claims management must administer the claim, coordinate evidence and meet statutory or policy requirements
Workplace rehabilitation works to assess function, coordinate services and support recovery at or return to work, and
Employers must provide safe work, address psychosocial hazards and make appropriate work adjustments.
Rather, coaching offers something different: a structured process through which the worker can make sense of these moving parts and actively shape what comes next.
This difference is important because symptom improvement and work participation are connected, but they are not the same outcome. A person may be making clinical progress and still feel unprepared to speak with their manager, test a boundary, negotiate suitable work, respond to a setback or imagine a sustainable future.
Coaching can help the worker clarify what they need from the return, prepare for difficult conversations, identify the boundaries they want to communicate, recognise early signs that the plan is becoming unsustainable and decide what action to take.
This in turn, helps the worker participate in their return to work with greater clarity and agency.
Moving forward
The ISCRR’s review offers a timely synthesis of an international challenge: legislative systems can become so focused on process that they leave too little room for partnership, context and choice.
Professional coaching may provide a practical mechanism within this implementation pathway. Its foundations - trust, reflection, autonomy, contextual understanding and purposeful action - closely align with the principles that person-centred claims management seeks to embed.
At Kinwork, we believe recovery should not be reduced to symptom scores, claim duration or a return to work date. A person-centred approach supports injured workers to rebuild their health, confidence and capacity throughout recovery and claims management.
Occupational Health Coaching can help connect these dimensions. It supports individual agency while keeping workplace conditions, organisational responsibilities and sustainable participation in work firmly in view.
References
Safe Work Australia. (2018). Taking action: A best practice framework for the management of psychological claims in the Australian workers’ compensation sector.
Schroder, C., Oxford, S., Sanatkar, S., Crivari, O., Dobiecki, B., Collie, A., & Iles, R. (2026). Review of best practice in psychological claims management in workers’ compensation: A report to assist Safe Work Australia in updating the Taking Action Framework. Institute for Safety, Compensation and Recovery Research.
Green, F., Matthews, L. R., & Hancock, N. (2025). Return to-work experiences of individuals with common mental disorders within disability-based insurance systems explored within a mental health recovery framework: A scoping review. Disability and Rehabilitation, 47(26), 6836–6850.
Anderson, O., McLennan, V., Buys, N., & Randall, C. (2025). Injured worker participation in assessment during the acute phase of workers compensation rehabilitation: A scoping review. Disability and Rehabilitation, 47(1), 69–79.
International Coaching Federation. (2025). ICF Core Competencies.