When a Return-to-Work Algorithm Says an Injured Employee Is "Ready," HR Still Owns the Call

Stuart Gentle Publisher at Onrec07 Sep 2026|When a Return-to-Work Algorithm Says an Injured Employee Is "Ready," HR Still Owns the CallNot long ago, the return-to-work file after a workplace injury lived in a manila folder. A case manager talked to the treating physician, HR read the restrictions, a supervisor found modified duty, and someone in the room made a judgment call. Now that same file gets scored.
 
Predictive models trained on years of claims data estimate when an injured worker