Most workers compensation claims are legitimate. Unfortunately, there will be times when an employee will try to take advantage of the workers’ comp system. When an employee has a workers comp claim with the following characteristics, it is time to be extra diligent in your approach to the claim.
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The Monday Morning Claim
When an employee reports an injury within the first few minutes of being on the job on Monday morning, there is a good chance the accident did not happen within those first few minutes but over the weekend while the employee was doing household chores or participating in a sporting activity or other physical exertion. This is especially true if the employee, who does not normally come in early, gets in and gets hurt before anyone else arrives on the job.
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The Unwitnessed Accident
A disproportionate share of back injuries, neck injuries, and other musculoskeletal injuries seem to occur when no other employees are in the immediate area. Often these unwitnessed injuries occur to people who have degenerative disc disease, arthritis, or other musculoskeletal issues bothering them before the unwitnessed accident occurs.
If your “injured” employee works typically around other employees, and the employee is in an area where the employee normally does not work, when the unwitnessed accident occurs, an in-depth investigation will be needed.
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The Late Report of Injury
When an employee is injured on the job, unless there is some really compelling reason to not report the injury, the accident will be reported the same day it occurred or at the latest the following day. When the employee reports an “accident” that occurred last week, last month, or longer, it most likely did not occur at work.
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I Forgot the Details
When the employee tells the employer that the back injury happened to carry a box of parts, and then tells the emergency room doctor the injury occurred picking up a heavy piece of equipment, and then the lawyer claims the back injury happened while the worker was using a jackhammer, which version of the accident do you believe? If the accident version varies from medical report to medical report, most likely none of the accident versions are correct. The employee who forgets the details of the accident is most likely having workers’ comp take care of the aching back or another body part when the worker should be paying and submitting bills to the worker’s own health insurance.
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The Unhappy Employee
Workers compensation is often abused by an unhappy employee. Sometimes employees may use a workers’ comp claim to keep from being laid off following a disciplinary action or to maintain a source of income when the union calls a strike, or when the factory is closing, or at the end of seasonal employment. When an employee is disgruntled about some aspect of the job, workers comp is often seen as a paid vacation.
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The Cheat
While some of the fraudulent workers’ comp claims are to have workers’ comp pay for a real, but not work-related injury, many fraudulent claims are based solely on greed. For example: The employee is offered a temporary “under-the-table job” paying cash. Claiming workers comp indemnity benefits while working under-the-table is a good way of getting additional income while maintaining a job to go back to when the temporary work ends. Other variations of the cheat is the employee who has been working two jobs, but is ready to give the second job up. A workers’ comp claim drawing indemnity benefits from two jobs greater than what is made on only one job provides the excuse needed to make a phony claim.
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The Migrating Injury
The migrating injury claim is often missed by an employer or adjuster. The employee starts out with a very real, very well-documented injury such as a falling object breaking a foot bone. The employee gets acquainted with the doctor and after several visits advises the doctor there is wrist pain. The doctor starts treating the wrist for carpal tunnel syndrome. When the doctor starts treating a body part that was not injured on the day of the accident, the additional medical treatment needs to be promptly identified and denied.
Any time you feel there is something just not right about an employee’s workers comp claim, your instinct is often correct. Any time a questionable claim is reported, do not just accept it. Report it to the claims office as questionable and explain why you think so. Ask for a complete investigation and involvement of the SIU (Special Investigation Unit) in the claim. Defeating the questionable claim will have a positive impact on your workers’ compensation costs.
Author Michael Stack, CEO Amaxx LLC. He is an expert in workers’ compensation cost containment systems and helps employers reduce their workers’ comp costs by 20% to 50%. He works as a consultant to large and mid-market clients, is a co-author of Your Ultimate Guide To Mastering Workers Comp Costs, a comprehensive step-by-step manual of cost containment strategies based on hands-on field experience, and is founder & lead trainer of Amaxx Workers’ Comp Training Center .
Contact: [email protected].
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