If you own a company with at least one employee, you are required to carry worker’s
compensation insurance. This type of insurance provides protection to your employees
should they become ill or injured on the job due to an occupational illness or injury
that occurred while performing work-related tasks. Worker’s compensation insurance
covers a variety of benefits to your employee, including vocational rehab, wage
loss, temporary or permanent disability, and medical care. Medical care under worker’s
compensation is essential for an employee with a work-related injury or illness
as it helps pay for diagnosis and treatment.
Benefits for the Employee
As part of workers compensation insurance, a variety of medical care benefits are
available to employees that get injured on the job or obtain an occupational illness.
However, the injury or illness must be due to the tasks performed at work, which
led to the injury or illness; some employees — depending on their occupation —
are at a higher risk of suffering a work-related injury than others. For instance,
a warehouse worker that packages different types of chemicals is at risk of incurring
an illness from accidentally coming into contact with some of these toxic chemicals.
If this occurs, the employee will be covered by worker’s compensation insurance
and receive the medical care they need. An office worker that is injured on the
job, such as developing wrist or shoulder pain, is typically able to get treatment
for the injury from worker’s compensation insurance. Employees sustaining illnesses
or injuries on the job have access to medical care through their company’s worker’s
compensation plan.
What Worker’s Compensation Insurance Covers
Worker’s compensation will cover various aspects of medical care for the illness
or injury suffered on the job, which is considered reasonable according to the severity
of the injury. This includes the initial check-up and diagnosis, medications, doctor
visits, examinations and labs, x-rays, hospital stays, medical treatments, physical
therapy, and some additional medical care services if it pertains to the work-related
illness or injury such as chiropractic care, restoration services, or dental care.
The amount of care needed depends largely on the severity of the injury, which varies
from simple treatment to surgery for a serious injury in some cases. Medical care
received through the worker’s compensation benefits does not affect the employee’s
additional medical insurance benefits. It will also cover lost wages. These indemnity
payments are tax free and are equal to 66 and 2/3% of the State average weekly wage.
How Worker’s Compensation Insurance Works
Once an employee becomes ill or sustains an injury at work, she should report the
injury to her employer right away, who will then arrange medical care with a worker’s
compensation-approved physician in order to get treatment over the next 30 days.
After that 30 days is up, the employee has the option of seeing their own physician,
but continuing to benefit from the worker’s compensation medical care benefits if
further medical services or treatments are required. During the time the employee
received medical care from worker’s compensation insurance, they do not need to
use their other medical insurance policies and therefore and receiving free medical
care until their work-related injury or illness has been treated successfully.
Worker’s compensation insurance is a broad type of insurance plan with a wide range
of benefits to the employee, and is essential for every employer to carry. Accidents
happen and illnesses are the unfortunate aspect of some types of jobs; for this
reason, worker’s compensation insurance exists to help pay for medical care and
lost wages for the employee.
