Make Sure You Give your Doctors a Full and Complete History

Provide also the details about the accident and all your injuries!

This is especially important! If you do not tell the medical providers where you hurt and how you were hurt, you could be harming yourself, hampering your medical treatment, and derailing your Workers’ Compensation case!

Let me explain:

Anytime you are seeking medical treatment (even when it has nothing to do with a work-related injury), you should always be upfront with your doctors and tell them everywhere that you are hurting. Your doctors need to have a complete understanding of your medical problems so that they can give you the best treatment possible. But in a Workers’ Compensation claim, this becomes vitally important to establish the nature and extent of your compensable injuries. Employers and Insurance companies like to minimize a worker’s injuries or deny claims they think are not work-related.

When the employer or the Insurance company is investigating a claim, they consider statements from the injured party and witnesses

They also thoroughly inspect the medical records. One of the things they are looking for is to see if the medical records support what the employee reported. Did the employee tell the doctor that they were injured at work? Did the employee explain how the accident happened? Did they give a listing of the injuries to the specific body parts that they are now seeking compensation for? That’s why it is important to be clear and detailed when discussing the nature of your injuries and how they occurred. Identify everywhere you are hurting and explain where and how the accident happened. Include anything unusual that caused your injuries, and do not just do that on the first doctor’s visit. Every time you go to doctors, make sure you tell them everything that is bothering you and everything that is hurting, even if you think that they already know. The sad fact is that many times if the injury or complaint of pain and discomfort doesn’t continue to show up in the medical records over and over, it is as if the injury is no longer a problem, no longer causing pain and has healed. So, make sure you tell your doctors everything. It will help them fully treat your injuries and help to make sure that the medical records accurately reflect your continued injuries.

Employers and Insurance companies review all the medical records very carefully

When an injured employee comes into my office, and the Insurance company or employer has denied their Workers’ Compensation claim or they are refusing to cover the full extent of injuries, one of the biggest and most common obstacles is that the worker failed to report the accident or injury in the medical records, until days or weeks after the alleged date of the injury. Employers and Insurance companies review all the medical records very carefully, looking for ways to turn down a claim. If there’s no mention in the initial medical records of the accident having happened at work and no description of how it happened or no mention of particular injures until much later, it’s easy for Employers and Insurance companies to turn the claim down. Don’t let this happen to you. Go to the doctor immediately, tell them everything, and keep telling them!

Learn more at: What Does the Georgia Workers’ Compensation Act Cover?

If your claim ends up needing to go to trial or hearing, the medical records are one of the most substantial pieces of evidence you can have. When SBWC judges considering a claim, they will give great weight to the medical records because they are written by a third party, with no direct stake in the claim.

This is an excerpt of the book “11 Secrets to Winning Your Workers’ Compensation Claim.” This book will answer many of these questions and give you the knowledge you need. Get your free copy now.

Download our Free eBook on Workers Comp

To schedule a confidential and free case evaluation, please contact us or call (770) 766-0555. Hablamos Español.

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GA Injury Advocates

At GA Injury Advocates, we endeavor to effectively alleviate your concerns. Our Marietta accident attorneys have been recognized not only in Cobb County but throughout the entire state of Georgia as fierce advocates fighting to safeguard the well-being and rights of injured victims. Get your free case evaluation by calling us at (770) 766-0555.

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