Timely Reporting of Employees' Injuries Is Essential
Do you know what to do if one of your employees is injured on the job? Before an injury occurs, you should educate yourself on the injury reporting process. That way, if an injury does occur, you can be prepared. The first thing you should do is report the injury to your workers’ compensation carrier immediately upon knowledge of an accident. Of course, you cannot do this if you do not know an injury occurred, so encourage your employees to report the injury to the appropriate supervisor immediately after it occurs. What can take less than five minutes can make a huge difference to the injured employee. It shows that you, the employer, care about them and want them to recover and get back on the job as soon as possible.
How Oasis Can Help
Oasis has a Workers’ Compensation Department that works with the insurance carrier, but mainly exists as an advocate of the injured employee. Our call center personnel take claims, answer questions and direct or authorize initial medical treatment. The Workers’ Compensation Department also has administrators who are knowledgeable in workers’ compensation laws and how they interface with other company-sponsored benefits such as the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and unemployment. Our clients and their injured employees use the Workers’ Compensation Department’s experience and knowledge to help deal with complicated, time-consuming healthcare and insurance systems.
Another reason to report injuries timely is early intervention. The Oasis Workers’ Compensation Department can help educate injured employees regarding medical and indemnity benefits. They can also provide the insurance company with wage information to ensure timely payment of indemnity and provision of medical treatment.
The primary reason injured employees litigate is non-timely provision of benefits–and litigation increases the average cost of a claim by 40%. So the lesson is this: Report claims as soon as you can. Not only is it the right thing to do, but you may be avoiding fines, saving claim dollars and enabling your most precious asset–your employee–to get back to a healthy productive lifestyle.
