TBI Report Card
Community Providers Survey

Dear Ontario Rehab Alliance members and other providers of brain injury rehabilitation in the auto insurance sector,

We are reaching out to you on behalf of the Provincial TBI Report Card Working Group and the Neurotrauma Care Pathways Project to request your input into this new and important survey.

Some background: The Provincial TBI Report Card was first released in 2020 by the Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation to draw attention to levels of brain injury care across the province. Previously there had been no data gathered on performance indicators across the continuum of care across the province. It became apparent that once a person leaves acute care and inpatient rehabilitation, it is very challenging to see the extent of care provided in the community.

As part of the Neurotrauma Care Pathways Project, we have been pushing the Ministry of Health to understand the need for community-based data and to fund infrastructure to support data collection. We need your assistance to demonstrate that data collection in the community is vital and possible.

We are asking community providers of brain injury rehabilitation to complete this survey to act as companion to the Provincial TBI Report Card for publicly funded services. This community-based data will be summarized by the Provincial TBI Report Card Working Group and will be presented with the 2023 Report Card. The Report Card is publicly available on the website brain injury guidelines website (https://braininjuryguidelines.org/onf/) and will be submitted as a deliverable to the Ministry of Health as part of the Neurotrauma Care Pathways Project.

We expect that this online survey will take about 30 minutes to complete. It has been developed in close consultation with the Ontario Rehab Alliance and will be disseminated across the province’s community-based providers. We are asking that only one survey be completed per organization or organizational division.

We have extended the deadline to December 1, 2022.  Kindly click below to complete the survey.

If you have any questions about the survey, feel free to contact Judy Gargaro ([email protected]).

Thanks in advance for your assistance and please feel free to forward the survey to your peers, colleagues and within your own associations.

Travel Time
   

Dear colleagues,

Most of you have likely heard that there have been two recent LAT decisions supporting insurers’ denials of travel time. Two things for us to keep in mind as providers, though they are both very much in the ‘cold comfort’ category are:

• LAT decisions are case-specific. They do not make case law that influences other cases. Though such decisions may inspire further insurer denials of travel time they don’t make the success of each denial a certainty.
• There is nothing in the SABS to prevent insurers for paying for travel time, or mileage for that matter. Some adjusters may pay for one or the other – and in very rare cases, both, when offered a compelling reason to do so. For instance, if it has been clearly established why the client requires in-home services and that there is no appropriate therapist/provider in closer proximity to the client, and the provider makes clear they are unable to absorb the cost of unpaid travel time then to deny travel is to deny service and might be seen as bad faith.

We are putting our heads together here at ORA Headquarters to develop further strategy. Stay tuned for developments and send your thoughts our way in the meantime.