Compensation benefits accommodate employee’s risk. No one has ever wanted to experience an accident. But sometimes, injury-causing faults may come from either of the two sides, individual errors or improper workplace safety. Here is where claiming for the benefits can get tricky and vulnerable to mistakes.
Collecting insufficient medical records
The first typical mistake committed by a claimant is to have too much confidence in presenting his/her medical records. And this error has been known to be the primary cause of the claim to get denied.
The insufficiency of the medical document is not determined solely by its legal status. If a claimant gets his medical records from professionals, like from psychiatrist for mental health issue or physicians for physical injuries, there will be no question about the credibility. But the primary cause of insufficiency is that the poorly matching injury report by the claimant with the presented medical documents.
The best way to avoid this is by consulting with compensation attorney. Louisiana workers compensation lawyers offer a free consultation for worker legal matters. Besides, a worker compensation lawyer does not get paid upfront. The payment is contingent on the case, which means the lawyer deducted his/her fee from the awarded benefits.
Filing for the case too late
A claimant is required to claim the compensation benefits as soon as possible after the accident has happened. The process to receive the benefits may take weeks after the injury, but the filing process must be done immediately. If it is not possible because of the medical situation, hiring a lawyer is the best thing to do.
Also, compensation benefits cannot be claimed after a worker gets laid off. If there is a tendency for the employer not to be co-operative, or worse, to be intimidating; the claimant must report to his/her lawyer about it. It is very unlikely to happen for a company to fire their injured worker, who is in the process of claiming for compensation benefits. But just in case there is a sign of it, do not be afraid. Worker compensation is guaranteed by the government to ensure justice.
Lacking communication with legal experts
Communication with legal experts should not stop after a claimant is awarded the compensation benefits. There are many stories of denied utilization review and claimants have died or disabled for life as a result.
Utilization review is the reviewing process done by employers or claim administrators on the medical treatment requested by the medical practitioner in charge of a claimant’s case. If this process takes too much time, the claimant’s life will be at stake. But delays of the review and even rejection of the necessary treatment is frequent these days. To avoid or to overcome that trouble, it is best for a claimant to keep the communication with his/her lawyer until there is no longer any medical issues.…
