Jun 25, 2023 | Work Injuries, Workers' Compensation
A worker’s compensation claim can follow with a couple different things. Some will modify your duty at work, and others mean time off to recover. However, your employer and the insurance company may be eager for you to return to work. You shouldn’t rush returning to work— it can be detrimental to your recuperation. Even you might feel like you are ready to make a workforce re-entrance. Remember that there are several steps you need to take before doing so after a worker’s compensation claim.
Workforce Re-Entrance: Getting Back in the Swing
Talk to Your Doctor
Your doctor will become a common point of contact after a workplace injury. He/she will develop a plan for recovery. This plan will project when you can make your workforce re-entrance. Your doctor will clear you to return when they feel you are medically sound. After reaching your peak improvement level, you should consult your doctor. Sometimes, doctors may allow you to return to your job with modifications or restrictions.
Be Prepared
If you are allowed to return to work with restrictions per the doctor, be prepared. Bring a note with those details to your employer. You should keep a copy of this note for your records. Be advised that workforce re-entrance with restrictions is important to your full recovery. If your employer does not follow the doctor’s orders, please consult your legal representation.
Stay Connected
Staying in contact with your doctor is important. What’s also important is staying in contact with your employer. Giving your employer updates on your status and recovery will make your workforce re-entrance smoother. These updates lets your employer know you’re taking your recovery seriously. When you do return to work, make sure you inform the proper authorities that you are doing so.
Make a Plan
When you make your workforce re-entrance, making a plan is a good idea. You can make this plan with help from your employer. Therefore, you, your employer, and even your doctor will have a clear and concise means of planning for your return and what that looks like.
Don’t Rush
Lastly, a workforce re-entrance probably means you’ll start making the same amount of money that you made pre-injury. If a doctor has given medical clearance for you to start working again but you still feel like something is wrong, consult your lawyer as soon as possible. Ask any questions you have regarding your case before returning.
Jun 12, 2023 | Work Injuries, Workers' Compensation
Getting back to work after a work injury can be difficult, painful, and time consuming. Furthermore, you’re likely wondering what the requirements are for returning to work. Who do I have to tell? Will I still receive necessary medical care? And can I request light duty? Making your work return after an injury can be a difficult process. But we’re here to answer questions, and help make sense of it all.
Making your Work Return after Work Injury: What Do I Need to Know?
After an accident or illness on the job, making your work return can be stressful. However, a doctor may release you to begin light duty. While the pain may be manageable, it may still be there. That means, at times, even light duty work responsibilities may still leave you hurting. Furthermore, there is also a chance you may not be returning to the same job or position. In that case you will have the stress of learning a new position and developing a new routine. In the midst of these stressful issues, you may also have questions about workers comp.
Compensation for lost time
After you go back to work, you may still miss some days due to you injury or illness. For instance, doctor’s appointments and therapy session may be a cause of missing time. In addition, just being in pain or sick may require you to stay out of work. In that case, you may be able to receive worker’s comp for that lost time even after returning to light duty, or standard, work.
Keeping your previous job open
Your employer does not have to keep your job open. However, a lot of employers will take you back when you can return for light duty. Therefore, it may be a good idea to keep in contact with your employer throughout your injury process. Keep them updated, ask about your position, and make preparations for your return.
Who you should tell?
Before you feel ready to return to work, or when the doctor gives the all clear, it’s important to make your employer aware and begin making preparations. Furthermore, once you return to work, you must notify the Worker’s Compensation Board. Lastly, the insurance carrier that is paying your medical bills should be made aware as well.
Understanding Your Benefits
Returning to work can be a challenging, but understanding your benefits and responsibilities— makes the process that much smoother. While unfortunate, it can be very easy to be denied benefits, or taken advantage of, during the worker’s compensation process. If you feel that you fall into that category, reach out to an attorney today. Dealing with a work injury is difficult enough already, don’t lose out on your benefits, or position, as well.
Jun 11, 2023 | malpractice, Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress, Work Injuries
One of the most puzzling things to endure, is to receive a diagnosis, but no resulting relief. After some time trying to treat an injury or ailment, you might make a second trip to the doctor and realize that you received a misdiagnosis. As a result, you’ve spent months fighting the wrong issue, and now your current one has progressed. If you find yourself in this scenario, and now facing further medical intervention, you might be wondering how you can get those months of financial burden, and wrongful treatment, back. While no one can return your time and hurting, you can potentially file a medical malpractice suit against the doctor who worsened your condition.
Misdiagnosis as Medical Malpractice: Making a Case
These types of cases occur when a doctor fails to diagnose an injury, or fails to identify the correct one. Without a diagnosis, you cannot find relief or treatment to try and heal your injury. Therefore, in the time you are spending treating the wrong injury, or receiving no treatment at all, your condition can worsen.
Proving Your Case
In order to hold your doctor accountable, you must be able to prove your case in three ways.
A doctor-patient relationship existed. First, you must prove that a doctor-patient relationship existed. By that, you must have records of seeing this doctor on several occasions. In order to show that he had enough time to see you and treat your symptoms.
The negligence of the doctor. Another aspect you may need to prove is that your doctor was negligent. In short, this means he or she did not provide treatment in a suitable manner. This manner can mean that they do not provide the right treatment or within a timely manner.
Their negligence caused you injury. In the end, you must also be able to prove that their negligence caused you injury. By that, in not treating you, they made your symptoms worse or brought about a new problem.
Receiving Your Compensation
In the event that you suffered from this type of medical malpractice, you may be able to sue your doctor. Since you did not receive the treatment you needed to improve your health, your quality of life may suffer. Furthermore, you may endure lasting pain and other symptoms that require treatment or medication. Therefore, it is important for you to understand your rights and benefits.
Jun 4, 2023 | Accident prevention, Work Injuries
When you work in a warehouse, it can be easy to fall into a pattern of doing things. In time, you’ll likely have a routine that you could do in your sleep. Therefore, many people who work in warehouses will choose to wear headphones on the job. It’s understandable that you would want something to make the day a little less monotonous. However, while headphones provide the right amount of distraction, they also introduce a risk you might not have considered before.
Headphones and Warehouse Work: Understanding Common Risks
Concentration and alertness
One of the first and foremost risks of headphones in the workplace, are the attention they take away from your task at hand. Especially when using heavy equipment, fulfilling orders, manning a station, or moving heavy materials— you need to be present. There is the potential for missing something along the way when your ears aren’t in the game. Take, for example, if something falls from high up and is headed straight for you. In most cases, there will be someone close by who might yell ‘heads up’, ‘move!’, or ‘get out of the way!”. But, if you have headphones in— you might miss those warnings and end up with an injury as a result.
Becoming caught in machinery
Depending on what type of warehouse you’re working in, there might be equipment of some sort running at all times. Therefore, it is often ill-advised to have any sort of loose clothing, or cords, in the workplace. You never know when that loose cord of the headphones, which is connected to your body, might become caught in a machine and lead to your being pulled in that direction.
As an employer, it’s important to keep your protocol in check
Many warehouses ban headphones for these very reasons, however, when things are going well— it can be all too easy to not pay attention to potential dangers. Therefore, make it a monthly, or quarterly, task to perform random, routine safety checks. While you might have other responsibilities, keeping your employees safe should always be at the top of the list. So, check in, check cameras, and hold your employees accountable for making the right decisions.
May 14, 2023 | Accident prevention, Work Injuries
Workers in many different fields like to make use of personal headphones. This lets them listen to things like music and can help pass the time. However, they might not be a safe option depending on your job. It’s important to know when wearing these headphones might become a risk to your safety…
Personal Headphones: Risk vs. Reward
Limiting outside noise
Personal headphones can help you block out any outside noise or distractions. This can help when it comes to focusing more on the work you’re doing. However, it could also mean you don’t hear important audio cues around you. This could lead to you accidentally getting hurt because you were unaware of what was happening around you.
Headphones can also have a small noise-canceling effect on their own. This can lead some to think that they can be used in place of special noise-reducing headphones or earplugs. However, this is actually not the case. OSHA notes that these headphones aren’t as effective as specialty ones.
Snags and tangles
Another issue with personal headphones is the chance of them catching or snagging on something. This can already be annoying when it happens outside the workplace. However, it could also be quite dangerous when you’re working.
For example, if you have to do a lot of moving around at your job, then your headphones could easily catch on to something. This is especially true if your work involves any kind of machinery. Overall, it’s not worth the added risk to wear headphones when doing this kind of work where you want to be as safe as possible.
Potential benefits
It isn’t a bad idea to wear personal headphones at every workplace, however. It mainly depends on the job you’re doing. If you work in a more desk/office-type of job, then you might be able to wear headphones depending on your workplace rules. Compared to other office safety risks, headphones probably won’t be too much of a hazard.
Here, headphones can be especially helpful if you have a hearing problem. They can help you hear a bit better if you have to make phone calls or listen to audio. They can also help if you have something like tinnitus. Having something like music or soft noise playing can help those with tinnitus keep their mind off of the ringing.
Apr 30, 2023 | Work Injuries, Workers' Compensation
Many times, an injury is not as simple as one bruise on one arm. An injury can any part of the body, all which need documentation— no matter how small . Documenting injuries is an important step in your worker’s comp case because it will help your case. Because insurance companies are reluctant to make pay outs and cover charges, this documentation will be important during all parts of your case.
Documenting Injuries: Why It Matters
What to Document
You should be documenting injuries relating to your workplace incident. For example, let’s say you fell at work and used your arms to break your fall. The main injury might be your knee with scratches covering it. What you might not see is the shoulder or elbow pain you are suffering because your arms helped cushion your fall. Then, after you document the injury, and make sense of the situation, it can add context to how your arms might hurt as a result of the injury.
When to Document It
Documenting all relative injuries as soon as they happen is imperative to a successful worker’s compensation case. You should have a discussion with your doctor about your injuries. Documenting injuries does not have to be a formal, long-form write up. You can simply tell your doctor you’ve had some pain in that area. You can also document it in your pain journal. For most major injuries, reports should be made within a few days of the accident.
Why It Matters
An accurate injury report from a doctor or the emergency room will be your best friend in a worker’s compensation case. Make sure all details are included, no detail is too small. Sometimes, insurance companies will try to use missed details or incorrect information to discredit the incident. You can make sure this does not happen by documenting injuries personally and fact-checking doctor’s reports.
To conclude: no injury or pain is too small to document. When documenting injuries, make sure you are including all relevant information. Sometimes, even things you might think are irrelevant can be helpful to your case. Bruises, cuts, and small swelling that you believe will just heal with time are still important to include in your injury documentation.
