Believe it or not, you guys are some of the lucky ones. As others have pointed out, Sedgwick is basically enforcing the plan YOUR employer gives them. And the Verizon plan is not that bad.
True, the examiners are still not going to ever answer their phones, but it really want to see some bad employee plans google Sedgwick CMS + one of these other companies (AT&T, Comcast, Walmart, or Amazon).
The horror stories of what AT&T asks Sedgwick to do to their employees would astound you. (Because despite being the decision maker, the real decision comes from YOUR company. They give Sedgwick detailed instructions of how to handle their claims. Sedgwick is basically the executioner — but your company is the guy who hired the hit.)
Verizon is actually SIGNIFICANTLY better to their employees than most of the other companies. Your executives actually go to bat with Sedgwick on a number of things, and far more Verizon claims appear to get approved than most other companies. Also, the Verizon execs actually meet with Sedgwick regularly to pass along employee complaints and demand better service. For example, Verizon is not happy the Sedgwick examiners aren’t returning calls and they’re demanding their employees get better service.
Becauer me tell you a little secret. If you work for, say, Monsanto or Merck or Google and you call Sedgwick the examiners answer the phone and return calls. Claims are quickly approved, because those companies demand it for their employees and they write plans that are fair and allow claimants to get good service and reasonable approvals.
Other companies either don’t care, or perhaps even encourage Sedgwick to behave the way they do.
Sedgwick has 21,000 employees and you are literally speaking with an entirely different department based off who you work for.
The experience an employee has with Sedgwick is basically the experience YOUR COMPANY has hired Sedgwick to give them.
Sedgwick is the claims administrator for nearly every major corporation in the USA, from Target to Kroger to Trump Tower to the Board of Education to The LDS Church to the NFL to Lockheed Martin. It’s not a coincidence that the people who despise Sedgwick work for a select handful of companies...your claim is decided based entirely on STRICT and specific rules YOUR company made up. Sedgwick is seriously just the hired gun.
More people need to realie this, because if they knew who the true villain was (the company that hired Sedgwick) things actually might start to change. Companies hide behind Sedgwick, and Sedgwick takes all the heat for decisions that are 100% based on following orders from the employer.
For what it’s with, Verizon is one of the better ones.