Five Ugly Tricks Employers Play to Avoid Paying Workers’ Compensation

It’s vital to coordinate with your employer after sustaining a workplace injury to claim workers’ compensation. While they may thoroughly investigate your injury case, a responsible boss would work with you to ensure you get your deserved benefits.

However, some employers use dirty tactics to avoid releasing money for injury benefits. These tactics may thus leave you with insufficient funds to cover medical expenses and lost wages because of your workplace injury.

So, knowing these dirty tricks helps you determine if your employer is using them against you. Call a Burbank workers’ compensation attorney if you notice your employer using these fraudulent activities.

How Employers Try to Avoid Paying Workers’ Compensation

1. Delay the Process

Delaying helps employers avoid paying benefits by making workers miss the claim deadlines.

For example, you must report your workplace injury to your employer within 30 days after the accident. And they should then prepare your claim form within a day of reporting your injury.

However, some employers intentionally take more time to prepare the document and delay submitting your claim to their insurance provider.

Remember that you only have one year after a workplace accident to file a workers’ compensation claim in California. You can’t file a claim once the deadline expires.

2. Misrepresenting Facts

Employers usually change vital details about workplace injury cases to reduce the benefits they should pay. For example, your boss may indicate a lesser rate than your actual average wage to reduce the benefits upon calculations.

So, double-check all claim-related documents and requirements to ensure they are accurate. Examples of these documents are:

Your injury report
The workers’ comp claim form
Papers you receive from the insurance provider

3. Offering Quick Settlement

Many employers also offer quick but low settlements to injured employees.

The instant money would seem helpful as the employee could immediately pay medical bills without undergoing the claims process. However, the small settlement cash usually isn’t enough to pay higher treatment costs, especially in severe injury cases.

The problem is that you can’t claim additional compensation once you agree on a quick settlement. It’s thus better to claim benefits through the legal process to get the amount you deserve.

5. Make Retaliation Threats

Your boss may also threaten to terminate you or reduce your paycheck if you claim injury benefits.

However, remember that retaliation against employees is illegal in California. You must proceed with your benefits claim and consider legal actions if your employer retaliates.

4. Limiting Medical Evaluation Options

Some employers have a network of physicians whom injured employees visit for medical evaluation. These employers may request these doctors to produce improper evaluations to prevent compensation claims.

For example, suppose you sustain severe lung ailments because of excessive workplace chemical exposure, and your employer refers you to their physician. That doctor may release a document proving that you don’t have a severe illness, and you may immediately return to work. This fraudulent evaluation result may also prevent you from claiming workplace injury benefits.

So, consult a different physician to evaluate and treat your condition. Hiring a Burbank workers’ compensation attorney also helps you handle a complex case involving fraudulent medical care services.

Call a Workers Compensation Lawyer in Burbank for an Efficient Benefits Claim

A responsible boss always thinks about injured employees’ welfare and provides rightful injury benefits. However, some employers do the opposite and use dirty tricks to avoid paying compensation.

You should thus be careful if your boss uses any of these fraudulent steps when you file a compensation claim. Consulting a Burbank workers’ compensation attorney helps you face your employer’s tactics and get your deserved benefits.