Take If You Are Injured At Work
Suffering a work injury can dramatically change your daily life. It’s easy to find yourself worrying over various issues, such as the severity of your injuries, how you will pay your bills, or whom to notify about your injury.
Workers’ compensation offers an injured employee several types of benefits if you adhere to certain rules and regulations. However, since filing any compensation claim can be complicated, you must follow some procedures to ensure you secure the settlement you deserve. Here are five steps you should take immediately post experiencing an injury at work.
Contents
Five Immediate Steps For Those Facing Injury At Workplace
1. Seek Immediate Medical Care
Seeking medical treatment for your work injury right away after the accident is always essential. Even if your injuries seem minor, you require medical care to ensure the condition doesn’t worsen.
Tell the doctor or physician exactly what happened during your appointment. Ensure the doctor documents everything you tell them. These records can protect you in case there are disputes with the insurance company about whether your injuries were work-related.
2. Report Your Injuries
Following your company’s accident reporting procedures, report your injuries to the supervisor right away. Let your supervisor know what happened and ensure that details of the incident are accurately recorded.
Based on the situation and the period you want to be off duty, your boss is legally required to report your accident to the HSE (Health and Safety Executive). In most companies, you could be in breach of the staff manual if you don’t appropriately report your accident at work.
3. File A Worker’s Compensation Claim
Ensure you file a worker’s compensation claim immediately after you are injured at work. Worker’s compensation will cover your medical care expenses and wage replacement for your injuries.
You want to avoid the lapse of the statute of limitation, as it could hinder you from filing a case. Filing your case without hesitation will ensure you meet the deadline. A Personal Injury Lawyer in Peachtree Corners can help you file your worker’s compensation claim.
4. Maintain A Record Of Your Expenses
It’s essential to maintain track of whatever goes on while you are injured at work. Observe carefully the days when you are not working and any expenses encompassing your clinical treatments. For instance, you will require a set of records of doctor’s appointments, the diagnosis, and the medications you have to take.
Track your mileage if there is a need of travelling for medical appointments. Recording your mileage can help ensure you get the maximum amount of deductions possible, allowing you to offset the high cost of medical care.
5. Prevent Future Workplace Accidents
Workplace accidents can occur anytime and to anyone, but you can follow certain steps to minimize the risk of injuries in the future. You can also incorporate what you learned from your experience in order to avoid any other workplace accident from happening.
Evaluate the incidents taking place and inform your employer about the same. Chat with your boss or manager regarding the actions the company can take to lower the chances of another worker suffering an injury or damage in the near future. You can request the employer to invest in proper safety training and offer adequate resources to the employees.
A List Of Entitled Benefits For An Employee Who Got Hurt At Work
While worker’s compensation usually takes into account all clinical expenses, there are other things that might be important for treating and diagnosing a workplace injury. There are five major compensation benefits that every employee receives from their organization. Check them out here:
Complete Disability On A Temporary Basis
On sustaining a medical injury, employees experience temporary complete disability benefits. This includes they can take out some time off work but for a short period of time.
Provisional Partial Disability
This medical benefit is assigned to those who receive work injuries. Under this benefit, an injured employee will have to perform certain light duties at work until they can start functioning like before. Like the previous one, the Provisional partial disability too, lasts for a limited time amount.
Permanent Complete Disability
Workers receive the benefit of permanent complete disability in the case of getting totally injured and disabled. This benefit is restricted to those who can never return to work, even after a prolonged time period. Here, the employee might also get the payments of Social Security Disability.
Enduring Partial Disability
Under the enduring partial disability benefit, a worker can take permanent time off-duty for losing a part of the body that might have an impact on their work. The perks remain the same, only the time period changes depending on the severity of the loss.
Death Benefits
The family of the deceased employee is entitled to this benefit. This happens in the case of a worker getting killed while working on-site and acts as compensation for losing their economic support.
Medical injury benefits at work are important for every employee as it helps them to partially recover from the trauma they experience. If you find it difficult to make use of these benefits, ask your organization or seek help from a personal injury attorney.
Endnote
Sustaining a serious personal injury at your workplace could lead you to discontinue your job for some time. Concurrently, your medical expenses may start to pile up. Thankfully, you can build a solid case by acknowledging these steps and with the help of a skilled lawyer. This can help you ask for your work rights and get your deserved compensation.
So, this was our take on the measures one can take while they get injured at work. Thank you for taking out time and reading. Use the comment box below and let us know what steps will you take in such a situation.
