At AdvoCare Group, charitable support of various causes, like breast cancer research and the Forbes House shelter for battered women and children, is an extension of a working culture where employees are focused on assisting those in need.

When customers walk the corridors of AdvoCare’s Emery Road office, it’s not unusual for them to pause curiously at the building’s fish-covered walls. It’s like walking into a Dr. Seuss book: red fish, green fish, big fish, blue fish. They have become the unofficial AdvoCare mascot.

Rochelle A. Garrett, RN, BSN, CCM, is the director of medical management at Advocare Inc., an Ohio-based case management company that specializes in case management and utilization management for worker’s compensation and group health insurance clients. Ms. Garrett has more than 17 years of experience in the case management field.

With its daunting cost issues, competing interests and regulatory complexity, it requires so little for any health care situation to become, or at least seem to be, a tangled web. It’s the mission of Karen Agnich at AdvoCare, the company she co-founded, to disentangle those webs or, better yet, set up a process so that there is less confusion.

When fuel was cheaper, people may have thought little of a 30-mile scoot to work. But now, in a midsize sedan, that $9 to $10 a day for gas can be a budget buster. Some employers show signs of feeling their workers' pain. Or at least they realize that stewing over the increasing price of commuting can be a workplace distraction.

Keeping up to date on managed care organizations can save employers time and money.

This article includes a checklist of items to evaluate the performance of your current MCO and determine how well they are meeting your needs.

There are currently 31 Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) in the State of Ohio. As a state-funded employer you must pick one of the 31 MCOs. If you do not select one you will remain with your current MCO.

To help you better understand what your MCO should be doing for you, this article contains a helpful checklist that you can use to evaluate your MCO.

 As an employer it is important for you to know that every two years there is an open enrollment period for state-funded organizations to select an MCO. An MCO medically manages/monitors your injured worker through their treatment program and returns to them to work as soon as medically able. In addition, in Ohio, the MCO processes all claims for payment.