Reopen a Closed Injury Case

Once you close an injury, the Close Injury button at the bottom of the Injury screen toggles to Open Injury. The Open Injury button is accessible on several SYSTOC screens. An alternative method is to go to Special > Open/Close Injury. If you need to temporarily reopen a case in which the patient was out of work or on limited duty when the case was closed, be sure to note the original date of closure, then click the Open Injury button. Use this original closure date when you close the case again; otherwise, SYSTOC will recalculate the lost work time based on a new closure date.

When you click the Open Injury button, you are asked whether or not you wish to add an appointment. Answer Yes and you are automatically taken to the Treatment screen. If you answer No, the case is reopened without a future appointment. It is generally not good case management to reopen a case unless there is a future appointment. If no actual treatment session is warranted, you can make a "dummy" appointment (actually a reminder to yourself to check on this case at a later date).

The date of this appointment is the day you wish to make a telephone call or take some other action on the case. Enter the Staff ID for the person who is to call, or enter a generic ID such as PHONE (a false ID which you create in File Maintenance > Medical Staff just like a normal Staff ID). Run the Appointment Phone Calls report to see a list of the telephone calls to be made each day. Remember that these dummy appointments will appear on the Injury Management Report to the company, as well as on the Injury Tracking report the following day if you fail to make the call. Don't worry that a phone appointment may show up in your scheduling, because making an appointment via the Treatment screen does not create a corresponding entry in the Appointments Register.