Workplace injuries can be frustrating, and they place workers between a rock and a hard place. Workplace injuries result in high medical bills and also prevent you from working so that you can foot the bills. Fortunately, workers’ compensation relieves employees from the stress and loss by compensating them for damages or losses incurred as a result of workplace injuries. The benefits take care of lost income and medical bills among other things.
Negotiating or filing for workers’ compensation claims can sometimes be complicated because you might have to fight for the rightful compensation. Unfortunately, you might make some mistakes that ruin your claim; thus, you don’t get the proper compensation. As such, you need to avoid these few mistakes that have the potential of ruining your chances of receiving benefits:
1. Failure to report the injury
One of the worst mistakes you can ever make is not reporting to your supervisor the damage. People believe that it is enough to inform the doctor that the injury was as a result of a work accident, which is a wrong perception. The first thing you should do after a work-related injury is to report the injury to the manager or supervisor. Your boss should then do some paperwork to notify the insurance company about the damage and confirm that it occurred at work. It is an essential step when filing for a compensation claim.
2. Failure to work with an experienced lawyer
You don’t want to make a mistake of starting your compensation claim without the help of a lawyer expert in work injuries in Salt Lake City. An attorney will significantly help you get your rightful compensation as he has handled several other similar cases. Most workers ignore the importance of hiring an experienced lawyer because they think that they can’t afford the services or they don’t know how to find one. Fortunately, you can easily find an attorney, and you only pay for the services after winning the claim.
3. Failure to seek prompt medical treatment
Sometimes workers don’t get life-threatening injuries that require emergency care. However, they shouldn’t ignore the injuries even if they are minor. Make sure that you visit your doctor for a checkup because injuries sometimes take days to get noticed. Remember that you have about two weeks to visit your doctor for a medical checkup before the insurance company denies the claim.
4. Signing documents without the lawyer reviewing them
Workers should understand that insurance companies are not on their side even if they seem honest or friendly. The insurance adjuster who is trying to persuade you is only doing his job by trying to prevent the insurance company from compensating you. Therefore, workers ought to avoid the mistake of signing any document that their lawyers have not reviewed and advised accordingly.
The benefits of workers’ compensation offer wage replacement and medical care. The outcome of the claim affects your family in the long run. As such, workers ought to avoid making the mistakes mentioned above to ensure that they win their compensation claims.
