WC Doctor or not -ASAP

pwilliam

We have an employee who is experiencing numbness in her thumb and index finger.
She thinks it may be work related. Should we send her to our WC Physician for an
evaluation or suggest that she see her physician and if he feels it is work related than we would pay for her visit and send her to the WC physician.

We would like to be fair to the employee, but would not like to be out
any unnecessary expense.

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

mwild31

If she thinks it's work related & cannot tie it to a specific accident or injury at home - send her to the WC physician. They will decide along with the injured employee whether or not it's WC.

One of our employee's was diagnosed with carpel tunnel and she didn't want it to be classified as WC (she felt she would get better treatment by having the private health insurance pay, rather than WC). However, because she couldn't tie her injury to a specific instance OUTSIDE of work and because she first reported the injury AT work - her private health insurance denied the claim & she was forced to go the WC route.

ssims

I would send her to your WC doctor. Hopefully you can pick the treating doctor in your state. Get him to rule it work related or not. I'll bet you if she goes to her personal doctor that it will be work related. You want to control the treatment if your state allows you to.