If you are injured on the job, there are a few things you should do right away in order to try to ensure the best outcomes for your case. Here are some tips to help you in trying to get the compensation that you rightfully deserve.
Record Your Injury Right Away
It’s a good idea to keep a few notes about the specific events and details of your injury as soon as you can after the injury occurred. It’s also a good idea to date your notes, so you can prove that you wrote all of these details down shortly after the event occurred if it’s challenged at a later date. If there are any other witnesses to the event, getting statements from them as well can also help.
Report Your Injury
Injuries can arise in a wide variety of ways, and they don’t have to be only one time physical traumas. An injury can happen due to losing your hearing over a long period of time at a machine shop, for example. It can mean that your back slowly gives out due to being asked to lift an excessive amount. It can be acquiring any disease that you wouldn’t have acquired otherwise. You need to report this to your supervisor as soon as possible. There are time limits to giving notice in PA, which your attorney can advise you of in order to qualify for compensation.
Get the Accident Report
You’ll want to stay on your supervisor until they make an accident report. If they just won’t do it, then you can do it yourself. Just state the basic facts of how the injury occurred and what it entails. If possible, get your supervisor to sign that he received the report.
Communicate with your Doctor
Whether it is a Panel Physician or Provider on a list given to you by your employer or you have to treat with your physicians, as you were not given a list of Panel Providers, give them a detailed account of your injury. You’ll then want to follow carefully all the instructions the doctor gives you in dealing with your injury. Contact an experienced workers’ compensation attorney, so that they can help you as to where to send all bills. If you can’t work as a result of the injury and your employer’s workers’ compensation carrier refuses to accept your claim, then again contact an experienced workers’ compensation attorney so that the proper legal action can be taken to try to obtain benefits that you and your family will need.
Contact a Professional
If you are being denied benefits at any point in the process or even if you have general questions, it’s a good idea to contact an experienced lawyer who specializes in the area of workers’ compensation to help you make sure you get the compensation that you deserve.
