The laws concerning workplace injuries may differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In most places, however, a workplace injury is one that happens in an employee’s place of employment and through no fault of his own. In general, you must report a workplace injury to management right away and seek medical attention if needed. If you do not report the injury right away, you may hurt your chances of obtaining compensation. If you are a manager rather than the injured party, however, you will typically have to follow the procedure your company has established for dealing with injuries; this may include contacting the company’s insurance representative in some cases.
If you’ve been injured on the job, your first step may be determining whether or not you need emergency medical attention. If that is the case, your priority should be getting the medical help you need. In such a case, you may enlist a coworker’s help with calling for emergency help and notifying management or the appropriate department that you’ve been injured. In most cases, companies have policies in place for handling workplace injuries, so your coworker may be able to handle this without your attention.
When an injury is minor, you may take steps to make yourself comfortable or get first aid and then notify the appropriate individual of your injury. For example, if you’ve cut yourself or been burned, you may use a first aid kit to take care of the injury and then notify the appropriate person. You’ll probably have to give a detailed account of what occurred and name any witness who were present. You may also have to state the time the injury occurred and the events that lead up to the workplace injury.
If your workplace injury did not require emergency medical attention, you may still need to see a doctor. In such a case, you’ll need to ask the person who handles workplace injury reports at your job which steps you should take; sometimes employers want their employees to see company doctors and will pay for their visits. In other cases, however, employees may see their own physicians and receive company reimbursement. It’s worth noting that health insurance may sometimes refuse to pay a bill for medical expenses that arise from workplace injury claims. Instead, they may expect the employer to foot the bill.
When a workplace injury is serious enough to cause the employee to need time off work or additional medical care, the employer will often compensate the employee. The amounts and types of compensation an employer is obligated to provide may depend on the laws in the jurisdiction. In some cases, however, employers and employees may disagree on the events surrounding an injury and the compensation that is due. If this happens to you, you may do well to seek a lawyer’s help.
