What Should I Do If I Am Injured On The Job?

The actions you take within the first twenty-four hours after your injury will often make the difference between your claim being accepted or denied! You must immediately do the following:

Report your injury to your supervisor and let any co-workers that you are working with know that you were injured;

Seek medical care as soon as possible and give an accurate description of how you were injured to the doctor;

File a Workers' Compensation claim form with the Maryland Workers' Compensation Commission.

Report Your Injury !

The reason you need to report your injury immediately is so that your employer

and their insurance company will believe you. Many claims are denied simply because the employee took too long to report their injury! ; If you wait until the next day, or worse, until a weekend has passed, you risk a claim that you really were injured at home or while doing some non-job related activity. Many people are tempted to delay reporting their injuries because they are intimidated by the fear that their employers will think less of them or punish them in some way. The reality is, that you risk far more by delay. Your reputation is only enhanced by rapid reporting and recovery from an injury as opposed to a delay which could result in questions concerning your honesty and reliability as well as a denial of benefits. The law does not allow an employer to penalize you for reporting an injury or filing a claim. Do not permit fear to jeopardize your rights to future protection!

Seek Medical Care

It is vitally important that you seek medical assistance if you are injured. The temptation for many is to wait several days or weeks to see if the problem will go away. However, the longer you wait to seek medical advice:

The more likely your claim will be questioned for the same reasons as a failure to report the injury;

You risk your health because many injuries become more difficult to treat the longer you wait;

Frequently injuries improve and then flare up when you perform strenuous activity. If you have not seen a doctor right after you were hurt, your doctor and/or your employer will not link the flare up to your injury on the job and your claim may be denied;

By trying to perform full duty instead of light duty or taking time off you risk the safety of yourself and others as well as the anger of an employer that may not understand your unexplained inability to perform all aspects of your job!

This does not mean you should obtain medical treatment that is not necessary. We are only stressing how important it is to have an initial medical consultation and the treatment you need to recover. This will insure the best possible medical and legal result for your injury!

File A Workers' Compensation Claim!

Notifying your employer is never enough to protect your rights even if your supervisor provides you with documents to fill out or sign!When you are injured, the employer has an obligation in most cases to file a first report of injury with their insurer and the Maryland Workers' Compensation Commission. You have an additional obligation! You must file a separate form with the Commission. If you do not do so you may loose all your future rights to benefits even if the employer or their insurer has paid your medical bills or time out of work voluntarily.

There is no legal requirement for your employer to give you that form and we can recall few, if any, instances out of several thousand claimants that we have represented in which an employer has done so.If you have not received a copy of your claim form back in the mail from the Commission with a claim number starting with the letter "B" then you do not have a claim filed. Are you interested in checking to see if one has been filed? Then call us and we will check for you, at no charge to you!