Source: Radio New Zealand
ACC chief executive Megan Main. Supplied / ACC
ACC says efforts to get long-term claimants off of weekly compensation is not about taking support away from people who need it.
The agency has been instructed to reduce its long-term claims pool, currently the largest it has ever been at almost 25,000 people.
The move is expected to save about $7 billion between now and 2029.
It is part of a suite of changes that, if all were implemented, would save the Crown entity about $25 billion over the same time frame.
ACC chief executive Megan Main told Nine to Noon two-thirds of the long-term claims pool had less complex injuries.
“We know that people with serious injuries are going to need ACC support for a long time, even their lifetime, and we’re here for them.
“Our focus is on people with less serious injuries like sprains and strains, shoulders, hips, backs, who, over the last decade, have been taking much longer to recover, still receiving weekly compensation a year or many years after their injury – and we’ve seen a tripling in that number in 10 years.”
Main said the higher figure was partly due to ACC pulling back on dedicated case managers for lower complexity cases in 2019.
“That is why two years ago, we changed our case management for long-term clients. We invested in 250 more case managers, through savings elsewhere.
“So every one of those long-term clients now has their own dedicated one-to-one case manager to help them get back to being ready for work, or back to being independent, back to living life as well as they can.”
In the year to June, 8000 people were exited from the pool, and by June 2026 ACC aimed to have a further 11,675 off.
Advocates for ACC claimants have expressed concern that people who were not ready to return to work were being exited without proper rehabilitation.
Asked if people were being exited against medical advice, Main said ACC case managers used information from medical specialists to make a decision on which of three ‘pathways’ to choose.
ACC Minister Scott Simpson.
“The first is that the person is assessed as being able to return to the type of work they were doing before they were injured.
“The second pathway is if they still can’t work but it’s not longer due to their ACC-covered injury.
“The third pathway is if they’ve been rehabilitated from their covered injury and it’s changed the type of work they can do… then we support them with vocational rehabilitation, vocational job training, to set them up for a different kind of job that they could do.”
Main said ACC did not collect data on what people went on to do once they had exited the scheme.
“There are so many reasons why someone might not go straight back to work after an injury. They’re often personal to the individual and there are other agencies responsible for supporting people to find employment.
“Our job is to make sure people are work ready through these three pathways.”
Main said ACC’s board was considering reduction targets, but there were not incentives for anyone at ACC to cut the number of people they support.
“We do not have targets that people are assessed against. We have targets in terms of what is good practice.
“We recognise that’s different for every case manager, and it’s also dependent on the types of claims people have, but we don’t have [individual] targets…
“We recognise that every client is different and we want our case managers providing good case management support.”
Asked about what ministerial, board or executive instruction she had received to improve financial performance, Main said ACC was doing what was in its control.
“Our minister for ACC has been clear that he expects us to improve performance. We need to make sure that the scheme is on a trajectory to be financially sustainable.
“We’re absolutely committed to that, from our board to me right through to our client-facing teams.
“We need to make sure that we are helping people to be rehabilitated in a timely manner that, in turn, lines up with the way levies are calculated.
“And ultimately we need to get back to a position where the costs of delivering… rehabilitation support for injured people are balanced out.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
