One Injury, Too Many Owners: How Data Confusion Increases Claims Costs

When an employee gets injured, a surprising question often follows inside the organization:

Who actually owns the data?

Is it HR?
Is it Safety?
Is it Risk Management?
Is it the supervisor?

In many organizations, the answer is “all of the above”—which is exactly the problem.

When injury data ownership is unclear, reporting breaks down, deadlines are missed, records conflict, and compliance risk quietly increases. OSHA logs don’t match workers’ comp records. Days away are tracked differently by different departments. And leadership ends up making decisions based on incomplete or inaccurate information.

Let’s make one thing very clear:
Undefined ownership is one of the fastest ways to undermine an otherwise solid workers’ comp and safety program.

The Root Problem: One Injury, Multiple Silos

Every injury triggers activity across multiple departments:

• Safety looks at hazards, root cause, and OSHA recordability

• HR tracks days away, restrictions, job transfers, and employee status

• Risk or Claims handles compensability, medical treatment, return to work, and costs

Each group is doing important work—but too often, they’re doing it independently.

The same injury ends up documented three or four different ways, on three or four different timelines, by three or four different people. When those records don’t line up, employers expose themselves to unnecessary risk.

And OSHA doesn’t care why your data doesn’t match. They care that it doesn’t.

Why Undefined Ownership Creates Real Exposure

1. Missed Reporting Deadlines

OSHA requires:

• Fatalities reported within 8 hours

• Certain serious injuries within 24 hours

• Injury records produced within 4 business hours

• Log entries completed within 7 calendar days

When responsibility is vague, everyone assumes someone else handled it. That’s how deadlines get missed.

2. Inconsistent Records

HR may record 10 days away.
Safety records 5 restricted days.
Claims shows the employee back at work.

Now your OSHA 300 log, 300A summary, and workers’ comp records don’t match—creating red flags during audits or inspections.

3. Inflated OSHA Metrics

If no one clearly owns recordability decisions, cases are often classified conservatively “just to be safe.” That leads to unnecessary recordables, higher TRIR, and worse benchmarking against industry peers.

4. Poor Return-to-Work Outcomes

When HR, Safety, and Claims aren’t aligned, employees stay out of work longer than necessary. Transitional duty opportunities get missed—not because they don’t exist, but because no one owns the coordination.

The Fix: Clear Ownership at the Location Level

One of the most important points is this:

Ownership must be clearly defined by physical establishment.

Especially for multi-location employers, clarity matters more than sophistication.

For each location, employers should clearly identify:

• Who completes the initial injury intake

• Who determines OSHA recordability

• Who tracks days away and restrictions

• Who updates OSHA logs

• Who communicates with claims and clinics

Without this clarity, data quality collapses as scale increases.

What “Ownership” Actually Means

Ownership doesn’t mean one department does everything.
It means one person is accountable for ensuring accuracy and completeness.

That person:

• Ensures reports are completed on time

• Confirms OSHA classifications

• Verifies days away and restricted duty

• Coordinates between HR, Safety, and Claims

• Serves as the single source of truth

Others may contribute—but accountability must live with one role.

Why HR Often Ends Up as the Logical Owner

In many organizations, HR naturally becomes the data owner because they already track:

• Attendance

• Job assignments

• Restrictions

• Transitional duty

• Employee status

That doesn’t diminish Safety or Risk—it strengthens them. When HR owns the data flow, Safety can focus on prevention and Risk can focus on cost control, using consistent information.

How Clear Ownership Improves the Entire Program

When ownership is defined:

• OSHA logs align with workers’ comp records

• Reporting deadlines are met consistently

• TRIR and lost time metrics become reliable

• Return-to-work improves

• Benchmarking becomes meaningful

• Leadership gains confidence in the data

Most importantly, injury data stops being an administrative burden and starts becoming a management tool.

The Bottom Line

Every injury produces data.
But data without ownership creates confusion, risk, and cost.

Clear responsibility—defined by location and role—is the foundation of an efficient, compliant, and high-performing injury management system. If your organization can answer “Who owns injury data?” without hesitation, you’re already ahead of most employers.

Michael Stack, CEO of Amaxx LLC, is an expert in workers’ compensation cost containment systems and provides education, training, and consulting to help employers reduce their workers’ compensation costs by 20% to 50%. He is co-author of the #1 selling comprehensive training guide “Your Ultimate Guide to Mastering Workers’ Comp Costs: Reduce Costs 20% to 50%.” Stack is the creator of Injury Management Results (IMR) software and founder of Amaxx Workers’ Comp Training Center. WC Mastery Training teaching injury management best practices such as return to work, communication, claims best practices, medical management, and working with vendors. IMR software simplifies the implementation of these best practices for employers and ties results to a Critical Metrics Dashboard.

Contact: mstack@reduceyourworkerscomp.com.

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

Injury Management Results (IMR) Software: https://imrsoftware.com/

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