Anyone can get injured while working, regardless of the industry. If this is your experience, you may be qualified to file a workers’ compensation claim. However, you may need to prove your injury is work-related for your claim to be approved.
Here are three ways you can do this:
Report the injury immediately
The easiest way to link an injury to your work activities is to report it immediately. After you are injured, head to a senior’s office, if you can, and report it. They will see your injury and examine the accident scene, concluding you were injured at work.
If you suffer a gradual injury, such as back pain for sitting down for prolonged hours or carpal tunnel syndrome due to typing, you should report it as soon as you notice the symptoms.
Witness statements
When you are injured at work, the people around you during the accident can help prove your injury is work-related. Their witness statements will serve as evidence to support your claims.
Security footage
If no one was around when you were injured, security footage will reveal how the accident happened. If the location lacks cameras, your employer will ask questions to gather more information.
Nonetheless, if you are ever injured at work, whether cameras are in place or not, always take pictures of your injuries and the scene.
Why should you not leave the office?
If you suffer a work injury, you should report it before you clock out. Leaving the office and returning to report it later may make the case challenging. Your employer’s insurance company may argue you were exposed to other factors outside the office.
On top of reporting the injury as quickly as possible. Be as detailed as possible with the mechanism of injury instead of vague, which can cause employers to be more dismissive. You should also ask for medical treatment when reporting the injury. If the employer will not send you to a doctor, or if there is no manager around when you are injured, you should still go to an ER or an Urgent Care right away on your own. And when you go, make sure to be as detailed as possible with the medical provider about being injured at work. The medical records will then support your contention of being injured at work, even if you could not report the work injury immediately. That can be a huge benefit to your workers’ comp case.
For repetitive type injuries. For a back injury, use the example of repetitive lifting of heavy merchandise, boxes, machinery, etc.
There is something else you can do if you were injured at work, and you plan on pursuing a work comp case against your employer, but they have denied your claim or are only paying for your medical treatment, and not paying disability benefit checks while you are out of work. If you want to try to get short-term or long-term disability while your case is pending, do not check ‘no’ when they ask if your injury or disability is work-related. The opposing side will use this against you in your workers’ comp case if they already have questions about whether you were injured at work. We see this all the time.
If you got hurt at work, be consistent on every piece of paperwork, and say that you were, in fact, injured at work. You may be denied compensation if you can’t verify your injury is work-related. Therefore, it can help to get legal guidance to prove this and more elements.