Pay for time spent at clinic for OTJ injury

Ruskanen

Do we have to pay hourly employees for the time they spend at our clinic receiving treatment for on the job injuries? Our company policy states that any time spent at the clinic getting medical treatment is unpaid. I recently had an employee challenge me on that. He said he's had worker's comp claims before and that the time he is away from work receiving medical treatment is paid. Where can I get information on this?

cebudragonlady

Just my opnion, your company policy actually discourages the reporting of injuries. Hourly workers with minor injuries won't report, for fear of losing wages while at the clinic. So a minor injury goes untreated, and the employee
continues to work - and then later MAYBE the injury gets aggravated on the job ... then you may have a MAJOR worker's comp case, potentially costing a lot more than the wages paid for being at the clinic. Save yourself grief instead,
your policy needs to be changed !

Margaret Morford

You need to check your state law on WC. The WC statues usually address this issue as well as how employees are to be compensated for additional doctor visits. You could also call your WC carrier and they could tell you.

Margaret Morford
theHRedge
615-371-8200
[email]mmorford@mleesmith.com[/email]
[url]http://www.thehredge.net[/url]

Don D

MS law (and maybe AR) requires that the ee be paid full wages for the day of the injury. This I assume is intended to cover the time they have to miss that day for medical reasons such as seeing the doctor.

bsa

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 07-25-02 AT 10:40AM (CST)[/font][p]Your particular state W/C law will address lost wages for you. Your W/C insurance carrier will be able to tell you if they pay lost wages for medical treatments.

We encourage our employees to make their appointments after work hours to avoid this conflict, after all, they have some responsibility for their own good health. But, as a means to build goodwill, we pay 70% wages for medical treatments during a workday. Our W/C insurance carrier pays 70% wage (may be [u]Texas[/u] W/C law?) of average of the 13 weeks wages prior to the injury for lost wages, so, we're going to pay one way or the other.

Hatchetman

I suspect that many state laws permit the emplyer to dock the employee's accrued time benefits to cover absences that are linked to the claimed injury pending the final determination whether or not the injury does in fact fall under workers' compensation. If so, then the employer probably has to restore the accrued time benefit that went to cover the doctor visits or other injury-related absences.

Carol CA

As DragonLady mentioned, we also pay our employees to encourage them to report the injury early (and maybe keep as first aid instead of OSHA recordable)and foster good will with the employees and let them know we care about them. The cost is usually minimal as we do encourage them to schedule the appointments outside of work if possible.

Ruskanen

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 07-25-02 AT 02:34PM (CST)[/font][p]Thank you for all of your input. I followed Margaret's advice and called our Kansas State Worker Compensation office. They told us that we are NOT required to pay our employees for time spent away from work for treatment for on the job injury. The policy was set up that way to discourage employees from saying, "oh, my achin' back" and sitting in an airconditioned clinic for an hour or two and still get paid for it. I mentioned it to the woman at the WC office and she agreed and said that employees need to take some responsibility for the own well being. We always stress that we want to know about all on the job injuries and that we care about their health and safety here on the job. We also have safety meetings once a month and remind them to keep using safety on the job at all times. I'm just relieved to know that we weren't unknowingly violating a law.

Don D

I've made my first two mistakes this year and both in the same post. First I referred to your state as AR when it is KS. Then I mistakenly said our state requires full pay for the date of injury when it's just our policy that requires that. But it didn't matter anyway.......just wanted to make the correction and admit my mistake.

Lola815

6 years ago when I started working for the company that i am at had the policy of having the employee clock out. the reason behind it was so the clock would start ticking for workers' comp coverage. Since then, we have decided just to let them stay on the clock so that way they will get the care they need. We do have a member of the safety committee take them in so we know they aren't goofing around on company time.

Pork

Paying for time spent at the doctor's office is smart and it atest to your concern for the injured. Your contact with the doctor's office will keep you posted on arrival and departure times, as well as, the treatment/loss time/light duty requirements,and follow up appointments, etc. Having the employee on the clock has always assisted us in maintaining control over the employee/physician's actions and the W/C cost.

B_Jackson

As Lola stated when the employee is off, that becomes lost time, which can add to the days to determine if this is a recordable injury. If the person is already off on WC then you pay for the travel time to the clinic. You will have better control over your situation is time at the clinic is not used to forced the employee off the clock.