Employeer Filling Workers Comp

AllianceCU

We have an employee that is not the best of employees to begin with. We have issued her warnings on at several occasions in the past year and a half. We recently had a robbery where she was held up by gun point. Sense then she has been going to counseling. Her ability to do her job is just getting worse. She now wants us to pay her co-pay for her medication that she has to take.
No workers comp claim was made when she first started going to the Dr. (We do not know why, it has been 2 full months sense she started going).
We would like to move or demote her to another position sometime next month and then hopefully come up with enough other information to terminator some time after that.
We have never heard about someone filing a Workers comp claim on one of there employees and was wondering if this would hurt us or benefit us in the long run. Any help would be welcomed.

Don D

It's the employer's obligation to file the workers' compensation claim with the carrier, not the employee's x:-). You should call your carrier now and explain the scenario to them and follow their advice. It seems to me that the counseling is directly related to the trauma she experienced on the job and I'll bet it is a comp-covered event. I'd recommending backing off on the termination right now as it might appear to her and her attorney to be retaliation of one sort or another. Get the comp thing straightened out first, and consider your FMLA obligations as well. She could eventually be ADA qualified too. If this is comp, then there IS no co-pay for medication related to the on-job 'injury'. It's all paid for by comp unless your state law is different in that respect.