Employees who are injured at work, or while performing work-related duties, are covered by workers’ compensation. This is a type of insurance that compensates injured employees while protecting employers from personal injury lawsuits.
Workers’ compensation has certain advantages that a personal injury lawsuit doesn’t. For example, injured employees, who are often out of work due to the injury, don’t have to go through the hassle of a lengthy lawsuit to receive lost wages and compensation for medical bills. And of course, employers enjoy protection from being sued.
However, workers’ compensation comes with certain restrictions that many employees only learn after it’s too late. Among the most important of these restrictions is the 30-day time frame for reporting an injury.
Why You Need To Act Quickly
Those first few steps you take after a work-related accident are the most critical. First and foremost, you need to get medical attention right away if you or anyone else has been injured.
The health and safety of you and any others who were involved in the accident is always paramount. You’ll have time to think about paperwork after everyone is safe and accounted for. If someone is clearly very injured, get them medical attention first.
Don’t, however, disregard what you think are minor injuries. Some injuries are invisible regardless of how severe they are, and some injuries may not be apparent until much later. And even minor injuries can become more severe if you ignore them.
But there’s another reason you should seek medical attention after a work-related injury. It has a with the success of any workers’ compensation claim you might file after the fact.
The 30-day Time Frame, And Other Stipulations
After your work-related injury has been treated, it’s time to start building your case.
While you’re theoretically covered for any injury that’s legitimately work-related, it doesn’t always work out this way. Ask any injured worker who had to fight tooth-and-nail to be compensated, simply because someone didn’t want to pay up.
Generally speaking, you have 30 days from the time that a work-related injury became apparent. In many cases, you can use the date of the accident to start counting. In cases where an injury developed gradually, this may be difficult to pinpoint, and even more difficult to prove.
In addition to timely reporting, however, the injured worker also has to prove that their injuries are real, are serious, and are work-related. This makes the act of seeking medical attention a piece of evidence in itself. If you claim that your injuries are serious, then your employer, as well as the insurance carrier, will want to know why you didn’t get medical attention for them.
There are many more reasons to seek medical attention than there are reasons not to. You may think that your injuries don’t warrant the hassle of medical intervention. You may feel embarrassment or even guilt. But an abundance of caution can save everyone and even greater hassle down the road.
If there’s anything about workers’ compensation law you don’t understand, or if your case isn’t going how you want it to, we’d love to make it easier for you. Contact our offices by phone, email, or text message today!