Employee reports injury 4 mos after it occurred

JILL M

What do you do about a first report of injury that was turned in about 4 months after the injury occurred? We had an employee who got hurt but he said he thought it would just bruise an go away in a few days. We want to put something in our Workers' Comp policy to prevent this from happening anymore, but I know that in the state of KY they have up to two years from date of injury to file with the state. Does that automatically mean we cannot limit the reporting time to anything less than two years from date of injury? Has anyone run into this situation?

Irie

You may have two years to file with the state but I would not allow an employee to wait four months to notify me of an injury. Our policy states that no matter how minor the injury is it must be reported and an incident report completed immeidately whether the employee seeks treatment or not.

If one of our employees waited that long they would be disciplined for not reporting the injury as soon as it happened. You may want to issue a policy on accident reporting.

JILL M

But you would still have to cover the injury as workers comp, correct?

I have put in some wording to our policy about employees who don't report right away being disciplined.

Irie

Submit the information to your bureau of worker's compensation and let them make the decision. As the employer, I would not certify the claim if this were to happen to us.

dixied

We had this occur in the past. EE reported 'bruised hip' in February, that accident occured in Nov. the previous year (accident witnessed by several other EEs) EE thought it was a just a bruise. The claim turned into to aggravation of back condition the EE had, but doctor laid it on us. No symptoms prior to injury, then symptomatic. EE has had 2 back surgeries about $200,000 total cost, medical and TTP costs. Now in a law suit. Such fun!!

HRVolley

Definitely add to your accident policy that all accidents must be reported immediately. Also, be sure to include disciplinary actions if the employee was operating under unsafe work practices (lifted a guard on a machine when they shouldn't have). In Ohio, there is nothing you can do to prevent an employee from submitting an FROI to WC. The best an employer can hope for is that the WC system will deny the claim. I had a past employee that submitted a claim 1 year and 11 months after they alleged it happened. Unbelievable!! Thankfully, it was denied.