The First Week After Your Maryland Workers’ Compensation Injury

What you do during the first week after being injured on the job will set the tone for the rest of your claim. It is the most important time. You must:

• Report the injury to your employer.
• Get medical treatment as soon as possible. Don’t let several days pass.
• Give an accurate history of the injury to your medical provider.
• Don’t speak to the insurance company unless you are sure you are not going to get an attorney (a decision that almost always is a bad one).
• If you want an attorney, choose one who will guide you, educate you, and that you trust. If the conversation is only about money, consider choosing another attorney.
• File a Workers’ Compensation claim.
• Choose a doctor for follow up care and obtain authorization to go.
• Decide if you are going to speak to a nurse assigned by the insurance company to your case.

If you make the wrong decisions, you might make it difficult to win your case. The insurance company may deny your claim. What you say or do in the first days after you are injured matters once you are in front of a Commissioner. Even if the insurance company pays benefits in the beginning, when the inevitable disagreement with the insurance company occurs, you will not be in a position to obtain a speedy hearing in front of the Workers’ Compensation Commission if a claim was not previously filed appropriately.

What You Do Matters

You should report your injury to your employer immediately after it occurs and at worst not later than the next day. Never wait until Monday to report an injury that occurred on Friday. If your injury was not witnessed by anybody else, you risk it will be assumed you hurt yourself over the weekend and are now lying.

Always get prompt medical treatment and tell the doctor what happened. If for some reason you did not report the injury to your employer but told the emergency room you were injured on the job earlier that day that will usually be enough to win your case if the insurance company contests it. Furthermore, by getting the treatment immediately:

• You get the care you need when you need it.
• You protect yourself from the insurer arguing you had a new injury between your job related injury and the medical treatment you are now receiving.

You should not speak to the insurance company without having hiring, or at least meeting with, an attorney. Workers’ compensation is an extremely complex area of law. The insurance adjuster is experienced in finding reasons not to accept a claim. You are not experienced with dealing with insurance adjusters looking for reasons not to pay you. Your desire to be helpful to the adjuster may be hurtful to you. Instead, you should have an attorney control all communications with the insurer.

You should also have the assistance of an attorney when your Workers’ Compensation claim form is filed. It matters what is written on the form. It matters even more if you have not reported all the details of your injury to the employer or if your doctor did not write down the correct history of the injury you provided. The average weekly wage you write in the claim form matters as well. It is up to the insurance company to dispute whatever you claim. If you state too low a number because you are not clear on the law, will the insurance company correct it? You already know the answer to that.

Your choice of medical provider can have a significant impact on the future of your claim. Some doctors are better than others. Some injuries require specific medical specialties. Your attorney can guide you through this unfamiliar territory.

Frequently, insurance companies assign nurses to manage the medical aspects of compensation claims. They will attempt to contact you, your doctor and be present at your medical appointments. They are often beneficial in catastrophic cases. However, the value of having them versus the risk they present is an issue, especially with less severe injuries. The insurance company will obtain information through their involvement that they may otherwise never know. Also, nurses often pressure health care providers to do things that you might not welcome. That is why most attorneys place stringent ground rules on their involvement. Furthermore, experienced attorneys have a much greater sense of which nurses can be trusted and which nurses cannot. You should never speak to one without the assistance of counsel.

The bottom line is that the first week after an injury is the scariest and most dangerous time for you. The injury is scary because of the pain it is causing you and your fears of how it will impact your future. It is also dangerous because your actions, non-actions, statements, and non-statements may haunt you throughout the rest of your claim.

By Clifford B. Sobin, Esq.