19 Injuries on the Job

To be covered by workers’ compensation, you must be an employee and be accidentally injured while doing your job. Should you be injured on the job, follow TAG’s procedures for workplace injuries:

• Notify your client supervisor and your TAG office/supervisor immediately.
• Obtain the name of the designated medical facility from your TAG supervisor. Providers have been chosen because of the quality of care they provide as well as their familiarity with workers’ compensation requirements. You may jeopardize your benefits if initially treated by any other provider.
• Complete TAG’s Post Accident Report with your TAG supervisor immediately after the accident or as soon as possible depending on medical treatment.
• TAG’s Workers’ Compensation Coordinator will contact you to monitor your progress and ensure you are receiving proper treatment and benefits.
• Contact TAG’s Workers’ Compensation Coordinator after each medical appointment to provide status reports on your progress.
• Participate in TAG’s Transitional Duty Program to facilitate your early return to work.
• We make it a policy to return injured employees back to work, within their current physical capabilities, as soon as the doctor permits.
• This also allows our injured employees to earn more money than they would receive from workers’ compensation insurance.
• Please keep in mind, your claim may be denied if you fail to inform your TAG supervisor within 10 days of the injury.

A few considerations to keep in mind if you incur a workplace injury:

You May Not Need an Attorney

States set workers’ compensation payouts, so there’s not a lot of leeway for you to get more (or less) than deserved. In Kansas, for example, a finger is worth 20 weeks of pay. If your finger is 10% disabled in a workplace accident, you get two (2) weeks of disability. The value system is automatically built into the law, and the doctor(s) decides the severity of an injury.

A workers’ compensation attorney will take 20-35% of any work comp settlement, so don’t hire one unless you think you’re being shortchanged over a permanent disability, have a complex claim or were unfairly denied coverage of your medical bills.

Even then, most states, including Kansas, have a workers’ compensation ombudsman/claims advisory group who can offer assistance regarding work comp claims.

Big Payouts Are Rare

All states, including Kansas, have pre-established formulas regarding minimum and maximum workers’ comp benefits for lost pay. Individual amounts are determined by pre-injury earnings and claim details.

Cheaters Eventually Get Caught

Cheating is so common in workers’ compensation that there’s a term for it: malingering, and fraud divisions look for it. It may take a while, but chances are pretty good malingers will get caught, and once caught, it can mean jail time.

All suspected fraudulent activity will be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.