Suffering an injury in the workplace can mark the beginning of a long and difficult period of physical pain, emotional distress, and financial strain. Severe injuries can leave one temporarily or permanently unable to work, greatly limiting his or her earning capacity and leading to the complication of interpersonal relationships. The workers' compensation system exists to grant injured workers the financial resources necessary to cover the costs of medical care stemming from an occupational injury and to reduce the force of the economic impact that lost time at work will have on the affected family.
As a good faith gesture, workers' compensation insurance is available to employees without regard to which party may have been at fault in the harmful accident. This restricts, in some measure, the size of any potential monetary awards that could have been gained through litigation. However, it is significantly beneficial in that it reduces the length of time that one must wait to receive benefits and eliminates contentious disputes pertaining to legal liability. When managed properly, it is a helpful solution to a challenging problem. When an insurance company or employer attempts to manipulate a claim so that benefits may be denied, though, it can be a cumbersome frustration.![]() |
Facing the Frustrations of Workers' Compensation Fraud |
What is Workers' Compensation Fraud?
In the media, because the insurance companies and the employers of the world have the resources and publicity savvy to promote their own interests, the few individuals who attempt to file claims for fictitious injuries are presented as the norm. Workers' compensation fraud, to those unfamiliar with the subject, is largely misunderstood as deceitful action by workers. More typically, though, it is constituted by the duplicitous efforts of an insurance company or employer to wrongfully deny a workers' compensation claim or to intentionally reduce the benefits payable.
This places an employee in an impossible situation, because it turns the system that is intended to help into an insurmountable obstacle on the road to recovery. The law allows for a worker to file a formal complaint if he or she suspects that fraudulent actions have transpired. Examples of this may include:
-Intentionally misrepresenting the circumstances of injury (insisting it was unrelated to work)
-Attempting to prematurely terminate benefit payments
-Manipulating medical evaluations
-Withholding benefit payments
In the media, because the insurance companies and the employers of the world have the resources and publicity savvy to promote their own interests, the few individuals who attempt to file claims for fictitious injuries are presented as the norm. Workers' compensation fraud, to those unfamiliar with the subject, is largely misunderstood as deceitful action by workers. More typically, though, it is constituted by the duplicitous efforts of an insurance company or employer to wrongfully deny a workers' compensation claim or to intentionally reduce the benefits payable.
This places an employee in an impossible situation, because it turns the system that is intended to help into an insurmountable obstacle on the road to recovery. The law allows for a worker to file a formal complaint if he or she suspects that fraudulent actions have transpired. Examples of this may include:
-Intentionally misrepresenting the circumstances of injury (insisting it was unrelated to work)
-Attempting to prematurely terminate benefit payments
-Manipulating medical evaluations
-Withholding benefit payments
![]() |
Facing the Frustrations of Workers' Compensation Fraud |
Who to Trust
When the system is turned against you by fraudulent actors, then you have no choice but to seek a legal resolution to the matter.
When the system is turned against you by fraudulent actors, then you have no choice but to seek a legal resolution to the matter.
No comments:
Post a Comment