When something goes wrong on the job, people often just want to move on with their day, but that reflex could leave them at a disadvantage. Instead of pretending that nothing happened, workers who experience any kind of injury while working need to ensure there is a record of the event before going to seek medical evaluation or treatment.
Those who get hurt on the job due to some kind of incident should make a point of immediately reporting what happened to management. Doing so is of the utmost importance for both the protection of the worker and possibly their employer as they move through the workers’ compensation claim process.
How fast reporting protects employees
When you report an incident that leads to an injury on the job, you may worry about retaliation from your employer. However, federal law prohibits retaliation against workers who report issues or get hurt on the job. Then your employer must document what happened. Doing so helps you, the injured worker, later connect medical needs with the workplace incident that left you injured.
Timely reporting is important because the sooner someone seeks medical care, generally the better their prognosis is. Beyond that, the sooner an employer finds out about a situation, the more proactive they can be about gathering evidence.
The sooner your employer begins to investigate, the better the potential documentation of what happened, which will only strengthen the employee’s claim for benefits. If the employer knows about the injury, perhaps most importantly, they can complete the First Report of Injury, a necessary form that the company must submit to the state if the worker is to receive workers’ compensation benefits.
How timely reporting also protects employers
Employers in the state of Minnesota must comply with both state and federal safety regulations. Workplace incidents that resulted in injury can lead to the scrutiny of a company’s compliance with those safety regulations.
The sooner a company knows about an injury, the better the documentation they will be able to gather on what happened. That documentation can help them demonstrate that they were in compliance and that negligence didn’t play a role in the incident.
Everyone benefits when a worker and their employer work together after a workplace accident. Timely reporting benefits everyone and helps ensure seamless processing of necessary benefits claims.