Maybe you fell off of a ladder while dusting a display and ended up with a concussion, or perhaps one of your co-workers accidentally backed over your foot in a company vehicle and broke two of your bones. When you get hurt at work, the injuries that you suffer can require emergency medical care and possibly ongoing treatment.
Especially if you already have a good health insurance policy provided by your employer, you may question whether filing a workers’ compensation claim is truly necessary. You may worry about drawing attention to the incident when you got hurt or angering your employer by asking for benefits.
However, your employer should not retaliate against you for claiming workers’ compensation. On the contrary, they should work with you to support you until your health fully recovers. There are two very compelling reasons to make use of workers’ compensation coverage instead of using health insurance for a work injury.
You won’t have any patient responsibility
Nothing in life is free, especially any medical care you receive using your personal health insurance policy. The typical health insurance policy imposes a deductible. You will have to pay thousands of dollars yourself before the treatment you receive has full insurance coverage.
You may also have to pay a copay for every medical appointment, physical therapy session or medication you pick up at the pharmacy. Beyond that, there could even be coinsurance, which makes you responsible for a flat percentage of your total care costs. Workers’ compensation will not impose any of these costs on you but will instead pay for all of your medical care, ranging from surgery to prescription medication.
You can get disability benefits
Maybe you need to take a few weeks off of work to allow your bones to heal, or perhaps you need to transfer to a lower-paying position that won’t aggravate your injuries. Workers’ compensation can provide you with total disability benefits if you are unable to work or partial disability benefits when you can’t earn the same wages you did before your diagnosis.
Filing a workers’ compensation claim will help minimize the financial expenses you have to cover because you got hurt at work.