In the state of Texas, the process for handling a work injury can be especially confusing because not all employers are required to carry workers’ compensation insurance. For first, you should confirm your protections by reviewing your company policies, employee handbook, and online state workers’ compensation board databases. At the end of the day, no matter where you can file a workers’ compensation claim or must pursue a personal injury lawsuit against a non-subscriber employer, reporting your injury is critical. Without further ado, please continue reading to learn how to report your workplace incident and how an experienced San Angelo, Texas work injury lawyer at The Mathis Law Firm, PLLC, can ensure you make all the right moves during this critical time.
What should I do to report my work injury properly?
If your Texas-based employer offers workers’ compensation benefits to their employers, you may be under a strict deadline for reporting your work injury. Specifically, you may only be permitted 30 days from the date of your workplace incident or when your work-related injury was first realized. The reason to for tight turnaround is that your employer and their insurance company will likely initiate an investigation afterwards. And so, the sooner they do so, the more accurely the facts and evidence of the incident will be documented.
With that being said, you must make sure your employer’s formal report includes the time and location of your incident, the task you were performing immediately beforehand, and the symptoms you experienced immediately afterward. You may notice that your employer instead chooses to take informal notes of what you share with them. Or, they may discourage you from following through with a report through threats of retaliatory actions. If you experience any of this, you must retain legal counsel right away.
What happens if my work injury is not adequately documented?
In short, the steps you take to report your work injury immediately after your incident may significantly impact your ability to receive medical care, wage replacement, and other forms of compensation offered by your employer’s workers’ compensation benefits program. For one, to reiterate, the insurance company may deny your claim because your report was not filed on time. But even if you meet the deadline, they may argue that the documentation was incomplete, it insinuates that the injury was unrelated to work or pre-existing, etc.
If you feel this is an unfair assessment of your case, or that your employer jeopardized your chances, you may have an opportunity to challenge your denied claim. That is, the appeals process generally entails a benefit review conference and contested case hearings. At this time, you may have more to control your narrative, and present medical evidence and testimony that exhibits your unquestionable eligibility to collect these benefits. Again, you should not enter this dispute process without being represented legally.
When in doubt, you can always rely on a skilled Tom Green County, Texas personal injury lawyer from The Mathis Law Firm, PLLC. Giving us a call to schedule a free initial consultation may be one of the best decisions you have ever made.
