Many times employer’s will not report claims, supervisors fail to fill out incident reports or otherwise ignore yuor injury. Below are five helpful hints to make sure your injury is reported.
REMEMBER: You MUST report your injury to a supervisor within 30 days after the accident.
1. Report the injury to a supervisor, manager, owner, operator or any person you would be directed to report incidents if on/off the jobsite. DO NOT report it to a friend or co-worker. This doesn’t count. Make sure you tel la person who is in charge of what you do at work or responsible for assigning you the work you were involved when hurt.
2. Get something inwriting. Make sure an incident form is filled out. If the person you report it to refuses or forgets to complete a form remind them. If, after a few days, they still won’t report the claim and fill out a report, do it on your even, even if it means writing your own document that simply states a brief description of the accident, the date, the time, the location, the work being performed, body parts injured and who you reported the incident to and what they have or have not done regarding your injury (if you read #1 above, you would have done this already!)
3. YOU HAVE 30 DAYS TO REPORT AN ACCIDENT OR INJURY!!!!! Many supervisors, Human Resources employees and even owners don’t really understand the law. In fact, many employers create their won time frame for reporting injuries. I can’t tell you how many times I hear clients tell me they were told they don’t have a case because they didn’t report the injury within 24 hours. ARG!!!! Drives me nuts. You have 30 days to report, don’t forget and don’t wait until the last day.
4. Body Parts: Include all body parts in the initial reporting, even if it doesn’t hurt that bad right away. Many claims for treatment of a back or neck or ankle or foot will be denied based on an initial report that only includes the compound fracture (bone sticking out of skin) of the arm. Not to be gory, but if I had a piece of a bone on my body sticking out, I can tell you I will be freaking out and will not be saying, “AGGGGHHHHHHHH, and by the way, don’t forget to include my back and neck when you fill out the accident report!” However, when you can, make sure to include each and every body part that was injured in the incident. Don’t make up body parts just in case it hurts later, that is wrong, don’t do that; just include all those body parts actually injured.
5. Be nice as you can. You are hurt. They are not. You are in pain, they are not. They don’t get what you are going through unless it happened to them. You will never get an apology or justice. Just get into the doctor. And for the most part, you really do get more flies with honey. Be nice and things will happen for you..until it doesn’t, and then be firm, don’t back down and call an attorney right away.
