{"id":1103,"date":"2017-09-01T01:00:14","date_gmt":"2017-09-01T01:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/?p=1103"},"modified":"2017-11-15T18:56:16","modified_gmt":"2017-11-15T18:56:16","slug":"how-what-and-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/2017\/09\/how-what-and-why\/","title":{"rendered":"How, What and Why"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Donna Motley, Vice President of Claims<\/em><\/p>\n

As your Workers\u2019 Compensation carrier, we provide a service. Hopefully, part of that service is to make your job a little easier. In today\u2019s world, everyone is busy. We can help take some tasks off your shoulders. After a work related injury, we can contact the doctor\u2019s office or medical facility and provide the insurance and\/or claim information. Any authorization to treat, refer for testing or to another physician, should be provided by our department pursuant to the Workers\u2019 Compensation Act and Michigan Health Care Services Rules. We can contact the injured worker and relay necessary information; and answer the employee\u2019s questions as to \u201chow does this (the compensation process) work\u201d?<\/p>\n

In order for us to help \u201cyou\u201d, we need you to help \u201cus\u201d. The first and best way to aid in the Workers\u2019 Compensation process is to promptly report the injury to us. The second best way, is to make sure we have complete and detailed information. While I realize sometimes the Employer\u2019s Basic Report of Injury (Form 100) has to be completed in haste, the more information provided, the least likely we are to call or e-mail you with questions or requests for additional information. Please realize, when detailing \u201chow\u201d an injury occurred, what may make perfect sense to you may raise additional questions in our minds. We are not necessarily familiar with your facility, the employee\u2019s work duties, work process, the machines on site or how they operate.<\/p>\n

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For example: #36 & #37 of the Form 100 ask, \u201cWhat was the employee doing just before the incident occurred?\u201d And \u201cHow did the injury occur?\u201d If one or both of those questions are answered: \u201cDoing regular job duties\u201d \u2013 that may make perfect sense to you, the employer, but it will create nothing but further questions in our minds. If we look at section #49 on the Form 100 \u2013 \u201cOccupation\u201d and the description is \u201cMachine Operator\u201d, we are still at a loss as to the job duties of the injured worker AND \u201chow\u201d the injury occurred.<\/p>\n

A big question associated with any injury is \u201chow\u201d the injury occurred. If the Form 100 indicates the employee was \u201cMaking boxes\u201d, we know what the employee was doing, but that does not explain \u201chow\u201d the injury occurred while making boxes.<\/p>\n

Other examples include: Inspecting part \u2013 hit head Using a grinder \u2013 lacerated cheek Sweeping floor \u2013 hit head Packing parts \u2013 back pain Driving hi-lo \u2013 lacerated forehead Removing chips stuck to drill \u2013 contusion of head and arm Using foot pedal \u2013 pain in mid back and down leg Operating CNC Machine \u2013 scratched head Operating CNC Machine \u2013 sprained shoulder Working on machine \u2013 punctured hand Trimming parts \u2013 cut left foot The first question in each case cited above is \u201cHOW\u201d did this injury occur? How did the first part result in the second part? Were other factors at play? Hit their head \u2013 on \u201cWhat\u201d.<\/p>\n

In cases of a \u201cslip\u201d or \u201ctrip\u201d \u2013 the first question to be answered is \u201cWhat\u201d did they slip on or trip over? The next question to be answered is, did they fall? \u201cHow\u201d did they land? \u201cHow\u201d did the resulting injury occur as a result of said slip or trip? As an example: If the employee slipped on ice in the parking lot and landed on their knees \u2013 why are they alleging an injury to their shoulder?<\/p>\n

If an employee was carrying tools and is alleging a wrist injury, \u201chow\u201d did the wrist become injured? What type and how many tools were they carrying? What was the total weight of the tools?<\/p>\n

When describing an injury, did the employee feel something \u201cpop\u201d. Was there instant pain? Did pain come on gradually? Is the pain sharp or dull, constant or intermittent, radiating?<\/p>\n

Was the employee bending, lifting, twisting, turning, pushing, pulling, lifting their arms above their heads, tossing something?<\/p>\n

In most of the cases I supposed we could make an educated guess as to how these incidents occurred, more or less, fill in the blanks. But in this day and age of litigation, we look at every claim as having the potential to be litigated and in doing so, need as much detailed information as possible relating to the alleged incident\/injury. The more information you, the employer and your employee, can provide, the better we can attempt to mitigate costs, secure proper medical treatment and effectuate a successful return to work for the employee. The more information provided with the initial filing of the Form 100 \u2013 the more likely we will not have to contact you for additional information thereby freeing up your time for other important matters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Donna Motley, Vice President of Claims As your Workers\u2019 Compensation carrier, we provide a service. Hopefully, part of that service is to make your job a little easier. In today\u2019s world, everyone is busy. We can help take some tasks off your shoulders. After a work related injury, we can contact the doctor\u2019s office…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-claims","category-compliance","category-loss-control"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/crutches-stick-figure.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1103"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1106,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103\/revisions\/1106"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}