WORK INJURY CHECKLIST

Your health is most important and it should be your first priority. Always request medical attention even for minor injuries. If your injuries are severe, call an ambulance or go to the emergency room. Better safe than sorry.

Hopefully, your employer sends you to a doctor immediately but the law gives your employer 5 days to do so. If your employer hasn't sent you to a doctor after 5 days, you can go to any doctor you want.

However, if you need medical attention any time during the first 5 days do not hesitate to go to a doctor anyway, whether your employer authorizes it or not.

Also, it is important that your medical records document how your injury occurred at work. So be sure to explain to the doctor details of how the injury happened and where.

Report any injury no matter how minor you, or anyone else, believes it to be. Some supervisors and co-workers make reporting an injury stressful and awkward. So, I understand how someone might be hesitant to report an injury. But your employer's workers' compensation insurance carrier does NOT understand. I promise you that the longer you wait to report your injury, the more likely your claim will be denied.

If you report the injury more than 30 days after the date of injury there's a rebuttable presumption that it is NOT work-related. And you are not entitled to workers' compensation benefits for injuries sustained outside the course and scope of your employment.

This is your health we're talking about. So, don't let anyone make you feel guilty about reporting an injury. Your family and your health is much more important than whether a few co-workers like you or not. If you have not reported a work injury, stop reading and report it right now.

Always request to fill out an incident report. If possible, fill it out at work, get a copy, and give it to your supervisor. Technically, a verbal notice of an injury satisfies the legal requirement of reporting it. But that's extremely risky, why take the chance? Complete an incident report.

This one is more important than you might think. Do not miss doctor's appointments. If you have to miss an appointment you need to call before the appointment and reschedule. If you miss more than 2 in a row, the workers' compensation carrier will file a motion to terminate benefits based on your non-compliance with treatment.

Take all medications as prescribed and follow all instructions by your doctor. For example, if you need a fusion in your neck and you're a smoker, your doctor will probably require that you quit smoking before he/she will perform the fusion. If you don't quit, you won't get that operation.

These are just a couple of examples of how not following the doctors orders can result in an injured worker losing benefits they deserve. It happens all the time. 

Keep you're supervisor, or whoever your contact is at work, updated. You don't have to call your employer every day or even every week. But keep your supervisor up to date with any changes your doctors make to your work restrictions. 

Be sure you give your employer a copy of any 'off work' slips from your doctor. Call your supervisor and inform them that you are still off work and whether your restrictions have changed. 
 

Make yourself available if your employer attempts to contact you. Call them back. If they have a modified position that will accommodate your restrictions, you need to accept that position and go back to work UNLESS the work duties of that position violate the work restrictions your doctor has given you. They can claim they offered you the position and you never showed up. They can then terminate you or say you quit.

Furthermore, if you are still collecting TTD checks, they will be entitled to reimbursement for the total amount you received since the date they offered you the modified position.

Stay in touch and only discuss your work status according to what the doctors have told you and when you may be available to work again.