If you got an injury or illness while you are working on your job, chances are, you are eligible for workers’ compensation benefits to compensate for the injury you acquired during work.
Workers’ compensation is a form of insurance your employer or the company you work for purchase to secure the costs in case something happens to one of their employees. This means that, under the right circumstances, you can claim benefits to compensate for the injury you got.
While you are almost always eligible to acquire your workers’ compensation benefits, it does not necessarily mean you are guaranteed to acquire them because in some cases, your employer may choose to deny your claim for some reason.
For this article, you will learn the step-by-step and must do’s when filing for a workers’ compensation claim. The simple truth is, some of the reasons why your claim – no matter how valid – is denied is because you probably have missed something while filing for your workers’ comp claim.
So, here are the 4 tips in filing your workers’ compensation claim.
1) Do not miss the deadline
Believe it or not, this is the most crucial part of filing for a workers’ comp claim. Many employees fail to claim their workers’ comp benefits simply because they missed the deadline for filing the said claim.
Although your deadline may vary depending on which state you live in, the typical timeframe for filing for workers’ comp is within days to a week – yes, 7 days maximum! The best thing to do, then, is to file immediately after the injury happened.
When you don’t file early (or missed the deadline), not only you actually broke the requirement, it will also give your employer and insurance company the impression that the injury is not serious enough that you didn’t bother to file as early as possible.
So, don’t miss the deadline. File the moment you acquired the said injury or illness!
2) Tell your supervisor and co-workers immediately after getting an injury
Tell your supervisor about what happened and immediately file for an accident report form. This is usually your first step in claiming your workers’ compensation benefits.
But you may wonder, why your co-workers too? What for? In case the accident and injury occurred without any witnesses, your best bet is to let your supervisor and co-workers know what happened. Although this is not a guarantee that you will have a witness for your case, at least they know what happened with your injury (this is crucial in claiming for your workers’ comp benefits).
If you have witnessed during the incident, then this is relatively easier. Tell them to take witness for you once an investigation happens to your case. The investigation will determine if your claim is valid or not.
3) Your medical records and accident report form should match
Some employees tend to exaggerate how they report to their doctor that it causes a mismatch to their original report in the accident form. It’s not that they’re trying to lie and deceive the case, but they’re just afraid that the medical record may not match their accident report form.
In an ironic twist, that even causes a mismatch to their records – and a mismatch medical record and accident report form is one of the reasons why your claim could be denied.
Accurately tell to your doctor what happened to you, just as you stated in your accident report form. Then let the results come, whatever its conclusion be.
4) Seek legal advice
Filing for a workers’ comp does not necessarily mean you should hire a lawyer – in fact, you can do it by yourself.
However, if you are unsure of the steps, a lawyer can give you advice on your case.
If you’re worried about the costs, don’t worry because our lawyers at LG Law Offices are giving free workers comp advice. Free consultation is just one way to help our clients – we take our client’s interests first before ours, so we do our best to give you quality service at an affordable (or even free) rate!
Conclusion
Follow these tips and you can increase your chance of winning your workers’ comp claim. Of course, this is not an exhaustive list, but definitely, a good way to start.
Workers comp lawyer near me
If you need workers compensation attorney, LG Law Offices have the best and most passionate workers’ compensation lawyers around! For more information, you may visit https://lglawoffices.com/workers-compensation/ontario-california-91764/ and have a consultation today.
If you want to look for more quality information about the law, we recommend Legal Facts.org: they publish quality articles that explain different law concepts in as simple as possible, so you can understand the law without troubling yourself with its complex jargons.
