Today we’d like to introduce you to Denise Higdon.
Hi Denise, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I’m a licensed occupational therapist with a passion for injury prevention. My entrepreneurial journey began in 1999 when my employer re-structured, phasing out the injury prevention programs I had created and implemented for clients. When informed of the changes, client contacts reached out to me and insisted these programs continue and that I be the one running them. This presented a unique opportunity to start my own business with a customer base offering to pay me directly for services I love and with teams of employees I’d helped and worked with for years.
In January 2001, WorkSite Consultants was founded, and we opened our first clinic to accommodate client requests for additional services which included drug screens, DOT physicals, medical & job specific physicals for new hire candidates, work hardening, return to work testing, and most recently, acute injury care. Our decision to re-brand and change our company name to WorkSite CARE Clinic helped us become more easily identified as an occupational testing and injury care clinic.
Our clinic, a 10,500 square foot facility, is strategically located in a busy industrial area of Memphis at the corner of Raines and Mendenhall, which is convenient for local businesses and close to many of our existing clients. We have a range of licensed professionals, certified technicians and experienced staff dedicated to serving our clients not only in the clinic, but on-site, which is where the business first started, at our client’s facilities.
Business growth continues as we listen to and respond to client requests for services to help them mitigate risk. We work with them to document essential job functions, develop comprehensive new hire physical testing, attentively managing work-related injuries, create interactive injury prevention programs, and assist with challenging return to work cases. We’re thankful to have the chance to help employees make sure they can safely do the work they need to do.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
There are always obstacles in business but what WorkSite CARE Clinic has always been good at is navigating changes, responding to challenges and identifying paths to help our company and clients in and through those moments. Resilience is a fundamental quality for entrepreneurs. True growth happens when circumstances seem insurmountable, and you get through them. When complications are overcome, the company mission is solidified, staff becomes more unified, and service expansion opportunities become clear. At WorkSite CARE Clinic, we see obstacles as chances to collaborate and to creatively solve problems in our business and to benefit our clients.
WorkSite CARE Clinic tests people to make sure they can physically do the work you need them to do. When we say this, the response we hear is “I didn’t know that was a thing”. It is, and it’s the thing we’re best at . Our staff knows our clients’ work sites, the work the employees perform and the workers who do the jobs. For us, our work is personal. We know that we’re making determinations and decisions that impact a person’s livelihood, so we take our jobs seriously. And we expertly maintain the necessary balance of objectivity and compassion.
Though the years, we’ve earned the reputation as being straight shooters and direct communicators. Our role is to make objective professional opinions and determinations about an individual’s ability to safely perform work tasks, to identify and document contributing work risk factors related to injuries, and to assist with challenging return to work cases. Our extensive experience, expertise, and commitment to using objective clinical findings as the foundation for our professional determinations has allowed all parties involved in cases to deem WorkSite CARE Clinic as reliable, authentic, and trustworthy. There are times when someone may not like our findings or determinations, however, they respect our results.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Our licensed staff have been to industrial sites and seen the work done by employees. We’ve weighed products, taken force readings, crawled under work pumps, been in spray towers, and talked to and trained thousands of manufacturing, transportation, construction, warehouse, packaging, and distribution workers. Not only do we know their jobs, we know the people.
This familiarity with our customers’ work environments and jobs creates trust and helps us make detailed work determinations for new hire candidates and for employees returning to work after injury. Through our work site visits, we learn the jobs and create focused and relatable injury prevention & wellness programs. Our professional staff also do ergonomic assessments which result in mitigation or elimination of musculoskeletal hazards.
WorkSite CARE Clinic has a long track record of achieving worker’s compensation cost reductions ranging from 12% – 35%. We work in partnership with clients and customize services to achieve their goals.
With WorkSite CARE Clinic, you get personalized attention and an experience with direct, honest, straight-talking staff who care about you. To us, you are a name, a person, and someone who chose us. We don’t take that for granted. We know people always have choices and we want to be the one picked!
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
I think I have a love-hate relationship with worker’s compensation. Although we wish people didn’t get hurt, it happens. We enjoy caring for and treating injured employees and helping them get back to work. The circumstances, scenarios, tragic stories, and sometimes absurdness make every day interesting because each case and each worker are completely different. Our role is to sift through a lot of subjective information, conduct thorough clinical examinations, make clinical judgements and appropriate treatment plans, deal with various personalities and motivation levels, advocate on the patient’s behalf, and communicate effectively through the process with all parties involved including doctors, other specialists, case managers, employers, insurance adjusters, and attorneys. Ultimately, we are deciding when and under what conditions an employee can safely return to gainful employment.
I dislike the current workers’ compensation process and system. We know there is a better way to help both employers and employees when a work-related incident or injury occurs. Our goal is focusing on employee care. By providing timely and compassionate care to the injured employee, the tone is set for the remainder of the case. Trust is established in the first encounter and continues as objective evaluation, direct communication, and care continues moving the employee through the initial visit into a return-to-work determination. Nothing is assumed.
WorkSite CARE Clinic is dedicated to using objective data to make professional determinations about the appropriate intervention needed and clearly communicate the work status and ability for this employee to safely do their job. Although we may not like the worker’s compensation system, we do like assisting employers and employees with injuries and helping people safely return to work. If you’ve ever dealt with the worker’s compensation system, you probably don’t like it either.
With WorkSite CARE Clinic, we work to make the experience as pleasant, interactive and enjoyable as possible!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.worksitecareclinic.com
