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Speaker 1: Building ANNGST around ACC. They've gone and taken a number

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Speaker 1: of long term recipients off ACC. Nearly eight thousand of

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Speaker 1: them have been cut off. This is in the year

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Speaker 1: to June, which is up twenty percent on the previous year.

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Speaker 1: So obviously a lot of people are asking what's going on.

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Speaker 1: Meghan Main is the ACC chief executive and she's will

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Speaker 1: this Megan, very good morning to you.

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Speaker 2: Good morning Mike.

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Speaker 1: Now, twenty percent's a thing, isn't it. I mean, anyone

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Speaker 1: looking at a number like that will go hang on,

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Speaker 1: something material has happened. What is it?

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Speaker 2: Yes, So, Mike, I want people to know first up

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Speaker 2: that this isn't about taking support away from people who

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Speaker 2: need it from ACC. And to put that eight thousand

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Speaker 2: in context, as of today, we've got almost twenty five

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Speaker 2: thousand ACC clients who've been receiving weekly compensation for over

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Speaker 2: a year. That includes both serious and non serious injuries.

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Speaker 2: So with serious injuries, these are our clients who will

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Speaker 2: need support from us for a long time, even their

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Speaker 2: whole life, and we will always be here for them.

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Speaker 2: These less serious injuries, though, things like strains and strains.

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Speaker 2: What we've seen over the last decade is a big

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Speaker 2: increase and the number of them who've still been receiving

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Speaker 2: weekly compensation a year or more after the injuries. But

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Speaker 2: there a range of reasons for this. That the thing

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Speaker 2: most in our control is our case management approach, and

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Speaker 2: I've spoken before about the changes we made back in

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Speaker 2: about twenty nineteen that meant a lot of these less

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Speaker 2: serious injury clients no longer had their own dedicated case manager.

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Speaker 2: So this contributed to more of them staying on weekly

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Speaker 2: compensation longer than you'd say is ideal. How the two years.

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Speaker 1: Ago, how rigid are you when you come to a

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Speaker 1: person who's got a strain when you look at their work,

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Speaker 1: do they have to stay within the work they were

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Speaker 1: doing or do you talk about things like changing careers,

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Speaker 1: changing training, moving down or that is that not within yourspics?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good question, And you know, this is

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Speaker 2: the importance of our one to one case management support,

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Speaker 2: so we can give people the rights at the right time.

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Speaker 2: And what we're looking to do is ideally help them

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Speaker 2: get back to their job if they don't still have

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Speaker 2: their job, get back to a level of work that

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Speaker 2: they can manage, or in some cases, get back to independence.

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Speaker 2: You know, really get back to living their life. There's

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Speaker 2: really strong evidence that if you can, then getting back

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Speaker 2: to or staying engaged in work has a really positive impact,

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Speaker 2: not just on your recovery, but your mental health.

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Speaker 1: Do you need to convince them of that? I noticed

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Speaker 1: in Britain over the weekend one of the ministers there said,

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Speaker 1: what we need people to do, because they've got a

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Speaker 1: massive sickness problem, like we do in this country, is

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Speaker 1: we need to convince people of the value of work

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Speaker 1: so that not working doesn't become a mindset. Is there

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Speaker 1: something in that?

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Speaker 2: Look, you know, we get two manion claims a year.

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Speaker 2: They're not all weekly compensation. But the vast majority of

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Speaker 2: people want to do the right things. They want to

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Speaker 2: get better, they want to get back to living their life.

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Speaker 2: We can do our part. We've invested in more case

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Speaker 2: management by reinvesting savings from other parts of the business.

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Speaker 2: We've also invested in more fraud abuse detection. But we

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Speaker 2: do need every New Zealander playing their part, you know,

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Speaker 2: doing the right thing, being active in their recovery, working

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Speaker 2: with us, you know, and also taking care so that

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Speaker 2: they don't get injured in the first place.

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Speaker 1: Exactly, All right, nice to talk to Megan Meghan Main,

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Speaker 1: who's the ACC chief executive. Two million claims a year.

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Speaker 1: Goodn't say, I mean if there were three hundred million

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Speaker 1: of us fine, but there isn't. For more from the

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Speaker 1: Mike Asking Breakfast listen live to news talks that'd be

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