Medical costs for employers are on a track that is significantly outpacing inflation, and the resulting financial challenges are growing ever more complex. Managed care has helped to ease some pressure in the past two decades but, with the initial cost advantages of managed care behind us and amid lingering concerns about access and quality of care, costs are again on the rise. Companies are looking for new strategies to help manage health expense. Most offer some incremental value. But, increasingly, employers are recognizing that a comprehensive approach to absence management can be an effective tool.

Unum's research of tens of thousands of its claims in multiple industries points to a powerful connection between employee absence and medical costs. As the leader in income protection,* our company specializes in helping employers put together solutions to the productivity and cost challenges of employee absence.

Your investment in an effectively designed employee disability insurance program and use of the other absence management tools that support the plan can make a difference in your bottom line.

Click the links below for more information:

• Corporate Return-to-Work Program Development Services
• Comparative Reporting & Analysis Services
• Family Medical Leave Administrative Services
• Integrated Disability Management Programs

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Corporate Return-to-Work Program Development Services

The average per-employee cost of absenteeism rose to an all-time high in 2002 of $789, up from $755 in 2001 and $610 in 2000. Absenteeism declined only slightly in 2002, to 2.1 percent from 2.2 percent in 2001.*

By learning more about absenteeism, better training your staff about it, and better planning for it, you can minimize workplace disruption and realize measurable cost savings. Unum helps you create a more productive, stay-at-work or return-to-work orientation with a unique offering available only through our employee income protection plans. Our corporate return to work program development support includes:

• Web-based education, impact assessment and human resource training tools
• Additional available telephone mentoring and regional staff training opportunities
• If desired, fee-based customized on-site analysis of lost-time patterns in your workplace, development and integration of employee absence policies, staff and management training and mentoring, coordination of return-to-work network providers, and measurement of results

* 2002 CCH Unscheduled Absence Survey, CCH, Inc., October 16, 2002

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A Healthier Workplace

• $8-9 saved for every dollar invested
• 25% fewer lost work days
• 32% fewer work-related claims
• 22% reduction in medical costs
• 30% reduction in new LTD claims

Based on typical results reported by current customers with return to work programs implemented by Unum. Each customer's results could vary from those shown.

Comparative Reporting & Analysis Services

Information is a critical element in better managing employee absence. Whether related to traditional disability absence or an entire employee benefit program, data and its analysis are paramount to identifying and understanding the who, what, where, when and why of employee absence. Leaner human resources staffs and increasing executive interest in cost-containment compound the need for efficient and effective reporting capabilities.

Unum's expertise allows us to offer information services that will help you better measure, monitor and manage your lost-time and employee benefit costs.

• You will receive standard access to a consolidated view of non-occupational lost-time costs and trends through reporting from your short-term disability, long-term disability and/or family medical leave events. Click here for more information.
• If you are a larger company, we can enhance or customize your reports for an additional fee, integrating data from a complete spectrum of employee benefits programs non-occupational, occupational, group medical, family medical leave, human resource/demographic into a common data warehouse and reporting platform.
• Your account management consultants are available to help you analyze and use your findings to move your benefits programs closer to your actual needs.

The information we deliver can help drive management decisions that reduce or eliminate absence costs before they become a drain on your company's medical and administrative resources. Knowing more about how absence impacts your company allows us to put our specialty expertise to work for you, recommending practices and procedures that can help you better manage your unscheduled absences and disability trends ultimately helping you keep your employees healthier and bolstering your bottom line.

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Family Medical Leave Administrative Services

Since implementation of the Family Medical Leave Act in 1993, millions of Americans have taken family medical leave and 33 states have adopted their own leave regulations. The resulting tracking and reporting complexity has taxed many human resource organizations. A complicating factor is that between 50% to 70% of employee medical leaves may also qualify as short-term disability leaves.* This means that managing medical leaves separately from your disability programs can add additional costs and potentially mean that employees remain absent from work longer than necessary. Concurrent, consistent leave management is critical.

Unum partners with you to help meet this growing challenge. Your sales contact or account manager will work with your staff to analyze your company's situation and implement a program that:

• Consistently administers leave in compliance with all applicable regulations
• Provides integrated intake, management and reporting of federal or state leave
• Systematically tracks and reports all medical leave

Our leave management unit operates as an extension of your human resources department, and we are in constant communication with you and your employees. Your employees receive written documentation of leave requests, and periodic re-certification of leave periods as required by law. You receive daily and weekly absence reports on family medical leave.

* FMLA information from Seyfarth Shaw, Fairweather & Geraldson, Managing the 21st Century Workforce, 1999. STD information based on Unum customer research and experience since 2000.

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Integrated Disability Management Programs

Unum brings together the full impact of its absence management tools in an ultimate level of absence management assistance: integrated disability management (IDM). Once you have reached a level of corporate readiness for full integration, we implement a formal IDM program by working with your chosen worker's compensation provider to integrate your non-occupational and occupational disability claim management and reporting, and to help you contain your medical costs.

Our IDM service begins with round-the-clock acceptance of claims for worker's compensation and STD. At GENEX Services, Inc., a subsidiary of Unum Corporation and an industry leader in the field, case management expertise for each type of claim is provided from nurse case managers for early intervention and vocational rehabilitation consultation. This step helps keep worker's compensation and STD claims from extending into longer-term claims. Our reporting and analysis capabilities help customers learn more about the causes of absence within their organization, and our corporate return to work program development services can help them create policies and processes to better manage these factors the full advantage of our absence management continuum.

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