Being injured at work can be a horrible experience to live through. In fact, your injury may be so severe you no longer have the ability to work at all. When that occurs, you should know that workers’ compensation can help you receive the income you need while you recover from your injury. However, having your claim approved is more difficult than you may realize. Below are some steps you should take to improve your chances.
Report Your Accident
The first step to obtaining workers’ comp is reporting your injury immediately after it occurs. This should be done on the day of the injury. If you wait longer than that, you are increasing the chances that your claim will be denied. Make sure a report for the accident is produced with your employer. You should even do this after an accident when you don’t believe you were seriously injured. If your injury only becomes apparent later, you may be out of luck if you did not report it in time.
Hire a Workers’ Compensation Lawyer
Obtaining workers’ compensation income can be a long and arduous journey with many stops and false starts. Overall, it’s probably a better choice to hire a workers’ compensation lawyer to help ensure you do succeed instead of going it alone. That way, you can ensure that all your paperwork is handled properly through your lawyer and everything is done promptly and on time. If you are unfairly denied, your lawyer can help you explore the legal avenues you have for rectifying the situation, including taking it to court.
Go to a Doctor
A third thing you should do to obtain workers’ compensation is to go to a doctor immediately after your injury and keep attending all of your scheduled doctor’s appointments related to your injuries. If you don’t go to the doctor, you can probably forget about getting your claim approved. It may be assumed you are faking the whole ordeal. Instead, go to the doctor and get copies of medical reports related to your examination and treatment. This can help prove that your injury occurred when and how you said it did.
Obtaining workers’ compensation income can be extremely difficult even if your workplace injury is completely legitimate. Don’t leave anything to chance. Instead, report your accident, hire a lawyer and go to the doctor immediately to greatly improve your chances of success. If you don’t, you won’t succeed.
Author information: Anita Ginsburg is a freelance writer from Denver, CO. She studied at Colorado State University and now writes articles about health, business, family, and finance. A mother of two, she enjoys traveling with her family whenever she isn’t writing. You can follow her on Twitter @anitaginsburg.
