Sometimes a workers compensation claim can evoke a mixture of feelings from the staffing company owner. First of course as a human being, you feel sympathy for the injured worker and want to do everything possible to see the worker gets the right medical care. Alternatively, as a business owner, as much as you are concerned about the injured employee, you may also be concerned about what effect on your Comp rates a particular injury will have.
Here are a couple steps you can take that will both help the injured employee AND help you keep your rates low.
- Report the claim as soon as possible to the carrier. The sooner the claim is acted upon by the carrier, the better chance you and the employee will receive better service from the carrier.
- Make sure your First Injury Report and any other paper work is complete. Incomplete paperwork results in delayed medical attention, which can mean higher medical costs and increased tension with the employee.
- Get the injured worker involved in their rehabilitation, including back to work programs as soon as possible.
- Discuss with your Safety Manager and employee what happened with each accident and what steps could have been taken to have prevented the accident in a non adversarial way. Involving the injured employee in this positive and constructive discussion will make them feel part of the solution, and help them want to get back to working on your team.
Please feel free to contact me for more ideas about how to minimize your workers compensation expenses at 202-302-1212.
All the best