By Donna Motley, Director of Claims

A New Year – new opportunities, new challenges, a chance for all to improve! 

Please remember to promptly report all injuries. Failure to promptly report injuries results in delayed medical treatment and inconvenience for the injured worker. If an employee does not report an injury in a timely fashion, we suggest disciplinary action be invoked.

Authorization to treat, other than the initial visit, should only be given by our office. That would include authorization for continued treatment, testing or referral to a specialist. We can only extend authorization if we have the claim information in our office.

If you are unsure if the alleged medical condition constitutes a work related injury or claim, call our office for direction and advice.

The current Workers’ Compensation law mandates that we control medical treatment for the first 28 days from the date we receive the claim – not from the date of injury.

It is not up to the employee whether or not they “want” to seek treatment. If a claim should reach litigation, the Court would consider it irrelevant that an employee “said he was OK” or “refused” medical treatment. The Workers’ Compensation Court will not acknowledge or recognize a statement or waiver signed by an employee indicating “no injury was sustained” or that the employee was “OK”.

Remember the game in grade school when you whispered a secret and it was passed to the next person, then the next, etc.? Remember how the facts and details of the secret changed by the time it reached the last person? Undocumented facts regarding an injury seem to process in a similar fashion. As time passes the story seems to change each time it is repeated. The injured worker is being given a lot of “free advice” by probably almost everyone he knows. When typical litigation spans 18- 24 months, you can imagine the difficulty in recalling facts accurately. Particularly by those not directly involved in the progression of the case, i.e. witnesses, immediate supervisor, co-workers, etc.

Workers’ Compensation Courts do not have a jury – there is only one person we need to convince, and that is the Magistrate!

Facts surrounding a claim sometime start even “before” the injury allegedly occurred: New hire? Bad attitude? Disciplinary action? Positive drug screen? Attendance issues? Poor work product? Frequent injury? Etc. Take notes, keep good records, document, document, document!

Feel free to contact our office. We can provide onsite claims training for your staff. Workers’ Compensation is only a small portion of your business operation, but one bad claim has the potential to decrease your bottom line in more ways than one.