Hi! My name is Sam, and I started this blog to help other injured people. Before you start reading, let me tell you a little about myself. Ten years ago, I slipped on a slice of fruit in a grocery store. My leg slid out from under me, and in a freak twist, it was rendered useless. I could no longer work and struggled with intense pain every day. Luckily, I found an accident and injury attorney who was able to get me the compensation I needed to cover my medical bills and my lost time at work. However, while I waited for the settlement to come through, I had to get creative physically and financially. This blog is dedicated to anyone who is in that limbo position. I hope the posts here help you decide what to do while you wait for the results of your trial.
Workers' compensation is a very effective tool if you were injured on the job and are seeking compensation. However, not every claim is successful, and there are quite a few different things that can go wrong. To help you avoid such pitfalls, here are some of things that you do not want to do when preparing a workers' comp claim:
Do Not Take Too Long To Report Your Injury
First of all, you want to make sure that you report your injury as soon as possible. You should immediately tell you supervisor about the injury. You should also explicitly say that you are considering a workers' comp claim, especially if you are asked about the subject.
If you do not report the injury immediately, then you are opening yourself up to some rather troubling accusations. For example, it might look like you injured yourself outside of work and are trying to game the system. By reporting your injury as soon as it happens on your shift, you are nipping that concern in the bud. In the best case scenario, there will have been witnesses to the injury, which can greatly improve your credibility and reduce the amount of effort that you will need to put into defending the credibility of your claims. You don't necessarily need to worry if there weren't any witnesses to your injury, but you should be prepared to deal with a great degree of scrutiny.
Do Not Avoid Medical Attention
If you are seriously injured on the job, then you need to seek medical attention as soon as you can. If you do not, then it will be difficult to get thorough documentation on the nature of your injury. If you allow the injury to worsen by failing to get proper attention, then some of the blame may be shifted to you and your claim's chances of success may suffer as a direct result.
Do Not Procrastinate in Filing
Once you have received attention and notified your employer, then you want to educate yourself about the deadlines in filing the paperwork for workers' comp. In most states, you have between 1 and 3 months to officially file a workers' comp claim. If you wait too long, then your claim might be rejected on the spot with no hope for a successful dispute.
Therefore, you will want to fill out all of the paperwork as soon as possible. Merely notifying your employer that you were injured is only the first step on the road to compensation, so you need to stay vigilant.
Do Not Let Your Claim Get Rejected Without Putting Up A Fight
Even if your claim is rejected, that doesn't mean that you cannot win. With the rejection, you should also get instructions on how to dispute the ruling. This may require that you gather new evidence, but that might be as simple as adding some documents that you forgot during the first submission.
For legal help filing your claim, contact a law firm such as Shoap Law Offices.
Share29 April 2016
