Reporting A Work Injury

Oct 5, 2023 | WC & Other Laws

Reporting A Work Injury – One of the most critical times of an injury is when you report it to your employer. It is crucial. Depending on how, when, or if you do it at all, it can affect your entire case. Reporting a work injury can dictate whether or not an insurance carrier denies a claim.

Common reasons why people don’t report an injury

There are many reasons why people don’t report an injury. It’s common to hear that they didn’t report it because they thought the pain was going to go away, or they were afraid of losing their job, or there’s a safe workplace incentive and there’s a lot of downwards pressure on an injured worker not to report their injury.

We’ve even had clients who didn’t report the injury and went to their own doctor because they wanted to do their employer a favor, they didn’t want to complicate things and cost them money.

The sad part in those cases is when the injury is serious because they get stuck in a situation where they don’t have a job, no income coming in, and the employer doesn’t have to pay anything, and they need medical care but they don’t have access to any sort of treatment.

The importance of reporting your injury

Let’s pretend you’re at work and you do something and you feel some pain in your back, but you think you don’t want to cause a stir and it will probably go away, so you decide to wait, but after a few weeks the pain is not going away and now it’s serious and then you finally report it.

At that point you will be in trouble because you may not have a witness to the injury, you didn’t timely report it, you didn’t seek treatment right away, you’ve given the insurance carrier, the ones who deny the claims, every single reason not to admit on the claim.

The insurance company will ask the employer if they were told about the incident, and they will say it’s the first time they heard about it. Same case with your coworkers. That’s why it’s critical to report your injury immediately, if you fail to do so the case more often than not goes to court.

Why should I document my injury?

Even if you think that you haven’t injured yourself and it will go away, report it anyway. You can say that you did something with your back and you don’t think you need to go to a doctor right now, but you will let them know if that changes. Document it, that’s the key.

Once you’ve documented it no one can say that you never reported it. Assume that the employer will say that you never told them, so always document it, you can report by sending an email or a text message, some sort of proof so that if they say that they never were told about it, we can prove that in fact you did tell them.

If you don’t report it, your case will be denied and it will be very difficult to prove your case in court.