By Donna Motley, Vice President of Claims

What is meant by “late reporting”? Typically, we like to receive notice of injuries (via the Form 100 – Employers Basic Report of Injury) within a week of the occurrence. The earlier a report is submitted, the earlier we can set the claim up in our system. Then, if there are telephone calls regarding medical treatment, we will at least have the basic information. The “basic” information required to set up a claim is the employee’s name, address, social security number and date of birth. Obviously, we need to know the type of injury and body part involved. We also require the employee’s date of hire, occupation and the date the employer was notified of the injury. These are mandatory fields to obtain a claim number. You can submit an injury report without knowing the current medical status, treatment plan or whether or not the employee will be losing time from work. We can obtain that information once the claim has been established.

When an injury report is submitted more than 30 days after the fact, your Loss Control Consultant is notified for record keeping purposes. If a pattern of late reporting develops, your Loss Control Consultant will most likely discuss the matter with you at their next visit to your location. We also report unsafe acts to Loss Control for their monitoring.

Late reporting of a simple laceration or foreign body in the eye is not as serious as late reporting of a back strain or knee injury where it is likely the employee has been treating for the previous 30 days. Medical treatment is monitored. Some occupational clinics are well known for excessively treating; and/or treating without authorization. If we see an employee is treating at the clinic with little or no improvement, we will stop treatment or have the employee referred to a specialist before 30 days. This will, hopefully, expedite the employee’s recovery as well as ultimately save money.

Is there ever a time when a claim won’t be accepted as Workers’ Compensation? The State of Michigan’s record retention is 30 years! So, basically, the answer is no. Any time an employee informs their employer of an alleged work related injury, the employer is required to turn the matter over to their Workers’ Compensation carrier. However, the more time elapsed between the injury date and the date we receive the claim, the more questions we will have, the deeper the claim will be investigated and the less likely the claim will be accepted as compensable.