Work Comp!
 

I've been slightly injured a dozen or more times in my 32 years as a pipefighter. I always lied and said I did it at home, just because of the horror stories I'd heard. Well, about 3 months or so ago, I hurt my knee but good. I stepped into a floor drain in a boiler room that the maintenance man had left the cover off of. It wouldn't have been so bad, but the boiler relief pipe came straight down to the drain and I got my boot caught under it and fell with my foot planted. I heard a pop, and and saw red it hurt so bad. Three months after the fact and I'm finally getting an MRI in a week. I've been putting all my weight on the other leg, and now it's jacked up, mostly the ankle. I had to hire a lawyer and the whole nine yards, so my advice is just say it happened in your garden at home. At least then you get a real Doctor, not a quack, and timely medical care. I was scheduled to retire in March, so I think for all intents I'm done. Maybe I'll get a settlement and buy a motorcycle or something cool. 32 years in the trade, and first one, except for a wreck one time which was only a broken hand where I braced up on the steering wheel.

Ouch. I had the meniscus in my knee roto rootered out this past summer. Sounds painful, Jay. I know a lawyer hereabouts. ;)

Sorry for the pain and problems you've encounted, Dogs.

Let us know if you have any other ideas for improving the program for compensating workers for on-the-job injuries. Frankly, your advice to not use the system just recognizes that the system sucks so bad it might as well not exist. So, can you think of ways to fix it? Or should we junk it and not have a compensation system?

Or should we just keep on pretending we have a system?

Sorry but anyone who injures a knee at their workplace and does not report as a work related injury is just hurting themselves, plus not letting management keep track of hazards so they can reduce incidents in the future. If you reported it right away you should have had an immediate x-ray done to r/o fracture. In most cases if a meniscus or acl was torn waiting a few months for the MRI and surgery is not uncommon However having your insurance pay for it rather than your employer is just not good advice to give to anyone. By the way if you had gone right away to your own doctor on your own insurance dime you would still be waiting a few months for an mri and surgery if you had soft tissue damage. You do not have a case might as well save the money on the lawyer.

I x-ray Marines all the time that have knee problems resulting from injuries. Unless it is a traumatic accident most wait some months before knee surgery for meniscus tears, etc.

That sucks, Jay. Hope you heal up quick, my good man.

Where I work, everyone lies about their injuries........Because getting hurt can get you fired. I watched a man nearly cut his thumb completely off. He wrapped it in a rag, stuck it in his pocket and went home "sick". Two hours later, he called in and said he had cut his thumb at home..............

Another incident;

A woman was lifting a case off a conveyor when it grabbed her glove and pulled her hand into a pinch point. I had to cut the belt to pull her hand out. All four fingers were obviously broken. They were all bent backwards. She stuck her hand in her pocket and managed to work to the end of her shift working with one hand. Called in the next morning and told them she had caught it in a car door.

It's a damn shame people have to resort to this sort of thing, but we do. Companies stopped cutting people slack for getting hurt about 20 years ago. At least that's what I've seen from my experience.

I had no idea things had gotten that bad.

This sounds like something out of the 19th century.:(

That it is tolerated illustrates how 'bad becomes normal.' Gradual frog-boiling principle.

This is yet another insurance company scam that is rotten to the core. If the employee does not notify a work place accident, the employer gets a pass. And usually the medical treatment they get is a farce (read scam) and the regular medical insurance will not touch it. Too many workplace accidents regardless of the severity, insurance goes sky high and/or the regular insurance drops you. A company is then forced to get the so called 'high risk insurance' at ridiculous premiums. So it becomes a cat and mouse game between the employer, employee and the insurance company.

The worst part is that an employee can run a scam and nothing can be done by the employer and the insurance company would rather pay and settle than fight.

A least this part incentivizes some desire in the employer to promote safety. Which counters, perhaps, to some degree, the always-present incentives to ignore it.

I don't know about other states but in California it is very risky to ignore safety rules and not carry the state mandated insurance. State, county/city and the insurance company are all monitoring and auditing the workplace regularly. Here in the city of Santa Clara, it's like 'don't even think about it or we will shut you down'. They have and they do if not the company parts of the operation deemed unsafe. And all visits are impromptu.

Job creation strangled by regulation! Employers flee California!

Where is the :rolleyes:?
:)

It's ok for Blankenship to kill miners, but not to screw with stockholders' dividends. Of course this isn't in California.

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Hope you heal up, Dogs, and I hope you can get a settlement and early retirement at full benefits.

Reporting a jobsite injury in a union environment ensures your name is first on the layoff list, in our production first job sector.

The longest a worker has lasted after coming off a workman's comp accident is about a month.

Very defanged union? Or did you mean to say non-union?

I left that as an exercise for the reader....

The workers' compensation system originally began as a compromise. Before it existed, injured workers had to sue their employers for negligence. If they were hurt in the course of their employment, but could not prove negligence, they were on the hook for the medical bills and lost time. Employees who hit paydirt, however, received greater compensation than just their medical bills and lost time. The employers did not like the risks and legal costs.

Therefore, as a supposed compromise, the workers compensation system was established. Employees could get medical treatment and lost time benefits, as well as payments for permanent disability arising from the injury without showing fault. But they lost the right to sue their employer for the injuries, even in cases of clear negligence.

Of course, when there is a compromise between the interests of insurance companies, employers, and workers, it is not going to be the workers who get the long straw. The employers get to choose the medical providers, and most often will use clinics that depend on continued workers compensation business for their client base. Those clinics are most interested in serving the needs of the employers and insurance companies supporting them - minimal treatment and prompt releases from medical care. Also, the lost time benefits and disability payments are capped. There is no way a highly skilled worker can recover his lost earning capacity when his injury deprives him of his ability to continue in his trade. And his lost time benefits are a fraction of his normal pay. An employee capable of earning $1000 to $1500 per week will see his weekly benefits capped at less than $500.

Those disadvantages were not enough for the legislative whores who represent corporate interests, though. They have made it more difficult to show that the injury arose from employment. Also, if the injury is in violation of an employer's safety rules, the worker can lose up to fifty percent of already inadequate benefits. (I was aware of a case of a worker who was in a car wreck while driving for work and had his benefits cut because he wasn't wearing a seat belt - even though the seat belt would not have prevented any if his injuries). And those workers who engage in recreational off-duty drug use can also kiss their benefits goodbye. Because pot use can be detected in the system for weeks after use, the Workers comp laws allow those workers to be denied any benefits. Practically all injured workers are tested for drug use.

Nevertheless, the benefits that are available under the workers comp laws are better than no benefits at all. Any injury that can have long term consequences should be pursued under the workers comp law. More importantly, most individual medical coverage will exclude coverage for work related injuries. If the type of injury is one that likely occurs in the work environment - like carpal tunnel - insurance companies will routinely send their beneficiaries to their employers to determine coverage. That means the choice can be between no medical coverage or coverage under the inadequate workers comp system. It's just not a good idea to get hurt at work.

Regards,

D-Ray

Good synopsis, Don. I was going to fire off something similar, but was too lazy and gladly deferred to a labor lawyer. I got into this stuff pretty deeply in the last 20 years of my career. The whole effort to keep the employer's EMR (Experience Modifier Rate) down as low as possible can lead to all sorts of shenanigans. Further tricks are also common when it comes to OSHA recordkeeping requirements.

Having been in a industry that by nature injury was all to common. Airlines. Between hearing back neck arm shoulder, the list is long. One must learn quick how to play the game. Thinking the employer, or their doc's, yes small d! Have your best interest involved will be surprised to lean, hopefully not to late they are wrong.
You can get a second opinion and see other Doctors and if need be get a lawyer.

Are you Union?



Barney

So I guess I can assume that all of these "1,278 days without an accident" signs that I see at these industrial sites are bullshit?

Dam that sucks Jay ! its been a couple of decades since my last workers comp claim. Even then my employer tried hosing me good. I grabbed a great WC lawyer who really socked it to them. Hope it all works out for you soon. Most of all get better first.

Such signs usually say 1,278 days without a lost-time accident. This is frequently achieved by so-called "walking wounded" programs whereby employers encourage workers to stay at work on light-duty assignments after they have been injured. This keeps their injuries off the books and helps such contractors' numbers look better to prospective clients.

I tore the meniscus in my left knee and had the MRI within a day or to. Maryland must be different. All in all what with ultrasounds MRI etc I must have logged 400 ,miles on the car and wasted two days in Emergency. AT the end the speci@list said ''it will heal". So the following year when I tore the right knee I said I am not going through all that crap again and stayed home. BTW both healed.