The First Step In a Bulletproof Workers’ Comp Claim Investigation

You’ve talked to any investigator or attorney late in a workers’ compensation claim. They will tell you the better you do at investigation right at the start of the claim is the most valuable evidence there is. Hello, my name is Michael Stack and I’m the CEO of Amaxx. And today we want to talk about the first step in a Bulletproof workers’ comp claim investigation. And that step is this preserve the scene, things that happen in injury. When an injury occurs, there are certain events and information and documentation that is only available at that time. You can’t often recreate it. Even if you do try to recreate the scene, it won’t be identical to what actually happened. The more time goes on, the more people’s memories fade, the more, the whole situation starts to fade. So how do you set up a system at your organization to properly document the scene?Every time an injury occurs?

Preserving The Scene

I’m going to give you a couple of tips. So you can use tape. You can use cones, things of that nature, just to visually document this off, kind of preserve the thing you think of, like those shows like CSI and crime scene shows and that type of stuff. You have this crime scene, this taped off. Why do they do that? They do that because they’re preserving the scene, they’re preserving the scene so they can document that evidence, take some tips from those crime scenes shows. They know what they’re doing. And they’re doing that in order to be able to preserve this scene properly, use tapes and cones document. As much as you can, sort of document as much as you can.

Document The Scene

And big piece here is witnesses. So documented talk to witnesses as soon as possible document is what says you can get witness statements, get statements from surroundings, get statements from people that who witnessed what actually happened at that scene and for that actual injury. Next piece here is probably some of the most valuable evidence. Some of the easiest evidence to get, particularly today, that’s photos and videos of the scene. You used to have like a professional videographer, someone with a camera around, come in and photo and document the scene. Now everybody’s got it right in their pocket. You whip out your phone, you take a bunch of photos, you take a video of what actually happens. It doesn’t have to be professionally done, but it needs to be done quickly. And relatively soon to the time of injury, the more the photos and the more you can get video of what actually happened, the more you can document, take off tape off and preserve the scene.

Set Yourself Up For Success

You will be setting yourself up for success in that claim, you’ll be setting yourself up to maybe make a proper causation decision. You’ll be setting yourself up to make a proper decision in regards to litigation. You’ll be setting yourself up to manage that claim appropriately, understand what happened in that injury. You can make good decisions, good management of that claim, and really offer often set yourself up well to take care of that injured worker as well, because you better understand the injury. You better understand how to get them back to work. Again, my name is Michael Stack and then CEO of Amaxx. And remember your work today in worker’s compensation can have a dramatic impact on your company’s bottom line, but it will have a dramatic impact on someone’s life. So it’d be great.

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 the founder & lead trainer of Amaxx Workers’ Comp Training Center, which offers the Certified Master of Workers’ Compensation national designation.

Contact: mstack@reduceyourworkerscomp.com.

Workers’ Comp Roundup Blog: http://blog.reduceyourworkerscomp.com/

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