Workplace Injuries & Workers’ Comp Process

By Kora Behrens, Clinical Nurse Manager, Medical Solutions

Have you ever been injured on the job? Do you know about and understand workers’ compensation?

If you answered ‘no’ to either of these questions, consider yourself lucky. You never know how long it might be before you encounter a situation that requires you to know what to do in the event of a workplace injury. If you answered ‘yes’ you should still read this month’s Clinical Corner, so that you fully understand the workers’ comp process you’d need to follow if you’re injured on the job while working for Medical Solutions.

While we hope that you never experience any injury while taking care of your patients, if you do, here are some pointers to remember while traveling with us.

1. The first step to remember when an injury occurs is to seek medical attention, if necessary. It is important to know where your hospital sends injured employees and travelers whether it be to the ER, urgent care, or employee health. For any needle sticks and/or blood or body fluid exposure, make sure you get blood drawn immediately from the patient you were exposed to and yourself if necessary. It will be your responsibility to be your own patient advocate in a situation as such, so make sure this blood drawn is done as soon as possible. It is also important that YOU are the one following up on the blood results with the hospital in case of a serious exposure.
2. The next step in the process is to notify your career consultant (recruiter) and to have someone from Medical Solutions complete an incident report. If at any time, you are injured on the job you must report this to Medical Solutions and must be done within 24 hours of the injury or incident and Medical Solutions will need to know as much detail as possible to file the report and workers’ compensation claim. This step is important because billing will not be covered until the report is made with Medical Solutions.
3. If you are off work for any amount of time due to the injury you must notify your career consultant. We will need copies of any restrictions you received because of the injury or treatment AS WELL AS a release saying that you are okay to return to work. This is required prior to returning to any work.
4. Once you have spoken with someone from Medical Solutions about the details surrounding your injury, we will file the workers’ compensation claim with Sedgwick Claims Management Services. Once this is filed, you will receive an email that contains your claim number, contact information for Sedgwick, and instructions on how to register online to track your claim. Once you have received that claim number you should be able to view the status of your claim and any other information regarding the claim through Via One Express. You can register with Via One Express through claimlookup.com. Using this website and dashboard will allow you to upload any files associated with your claim or case, including bills which will allow for quicker payment. You can and should also communicate any billing items or questions about benefits to your claim adjuster through Sedgwick.

Please Note: If the injury occurs in Ohio, North Dakota, Washington, or Wyoming the injury still needs to be reported to Medical Solutions BUT you will need to follow hospital protocol for further information on the workers’ compensation process.

Knowing the proper process involved with workers’ compensation claims is very important to providing coverage to our Travelers as well as ensuring their health is managed and they are taken care of. The number one, most important important thing to remember if any workplace injury occurs is to communicate with Medical Solutions and your Career Consultant right away. No matter what the injury or the severity, Medical Solutions needs to be aware of what happened and that all starts with knowing the process and communicating overall!