Pay for Employee's Time at Doctor Appointments? California

[lltuser]

Hi!

For an employee going to doctor appointments for a worker's comp injury, should she be paid for her time?

If so, does it matter if the appointment occuring during her regularly scheduled work hours?

Also, can we request for her to schedule such appointments before / after or, at least, as early / late as possible if the appointment overlaps the work schedule?

Hope this all makes sense.

Thanks!

[ElleMD]

The only state which requires you to treat the time spent receiving medical care as work time is CT. In every other state it is totally up to you how you want to treat it. If you want to require that appointments occurr outside of working hours you may.

[CAIW]

make it as difficult as possible for the employee, afterall, they were hurt doing a job for you.

The law requires you to be paid wage loss for days you cannot work due to your injury...taking time off to see a Dr would be compensable, BY the IC, IF the doctor says you cannot perform your job. If you are working, and take the time, that is not ''disability'' benefits.

The law does not require the ER to pay wages for taking the time off... however they may if so desired.

...afterall, they were hurt doing a job for you You were also being paid a wage for performing that job duties.
If you do some research on industrial injury, you'll probable find that a preponderance of work injuries are suffered by EE's doing something they should not have been doing in the first place. ie lifting objects they know are too heavy.

[mcarson87]

If you do some research on industrial injury, you'll probable find that a preponderance of work injuries are suffered by EE's doing something they should not have been doing in the first place. ie lifting objects they know are too heavy.

Unbelievable. Yeah it's those dumb employees fault! Employers never instruct employees to do something that could get them hurt!

[CAIW]

I didn't say it was the EE's fault... WC is no fault. It's a good idea however to recognize your limitations, and work within your ability.
Accidents do happen...every day. And, they are just that...accidents.

Employers never instruct employees to do something that could get them hurt! Recognizing that may be the case... ''just say no'', it would be very difficult for any ER to terminate an EE for refusing to do something that would cause harm/injury. Stop and think would avoid lots of industrial injury.

[HR/DisMgr]

I have to weigh in--most of my industrial injuries are preventable. We send out questionnaires to each supervisor post-incident as we try and figure out the root cause of the claim. Frequency and severity are down. (yay!)

Some injuries are preventable--like the employee who got angry and punched a set of metal lockers and broke his hand (denied claim), the employee who was warned for scaling the shevling in the back room and did it again and fell and broke his ankle (claim accepted, but he was fired for insubordination) or the employee who ignores the team lift sticker and tries to carry out a heavy object and strains his back. My personal favorite??? Using the wrong tool for the job...a box knife used to cut a zip tie often results in a deep laceration on the palm of the hand.

We do our best and send out reminders and safety bulletins and speak to our supervisory staff. Incidents still happen and workers' comp is no fault and thus we take very good care of our IW's while at the same time trying to teach them so continued accidents do not occur.

At the same time there are true accidents like my supervisor who was rear ended in a company car in a 35 car pile up in NoCal last week. Honestly, how do you prevent that?

CAIW has been there and if you read his responses, you will see that they are thoughtful and neither take the employer or employee's side on a regular basis. Sometimes the IW is wrong and sometimes the ER is wrong.

But to bring in unnecessary emotion into the equation only adds flames to the fire and can bring division between the ER/EE. Regardless of how I feel about the IW who has multiple injuries or the one who disregarded safe practices, my job is to get them the treatment they need to get better and work on preventative future practices.

For the OP--we don't pay for followup appts or physical therapy. We do pay for DOI exams as well as any med-legal which may be required in the course of the claim. We require follow up medical appts as well as physical therapy are scheduled off duty.

[christamcd]

One additinal point - in California you do have to pay for full wages the day of injury if they go for treatment. After that, you are not obligated to pay for time missed due to injury.

[DAW]

There is also a somewhat similar federal rule.
http://www.dol.gov/dol/allcfr/ESA/Ti...9CFR785.43.htm

[HRinMA]

I want to chime in with agreement HR/Dismgr. I have had many claims in my 9 yrs in HR. Never once has an employee told me they injured themselves because a mgr told them to do something the employee knew he shouldn't do.

I have had a claim when an employee fell down a trash shoot 3 stories. He dropped a set of keys on a ledge and decided to climb in. He retrieved the keys but trash was thrown in from a higher floor and dislodged him. Luckily he had only minor bruises.

In my prior job I saw many car accidents. I had one mgr who got rear ended by a high speed car on a dark back road. He rolled 3 times, went off the road, hit a sign for beer then came to rest against a tree. His seat belt broke and he ended up in the rear seat. The emergencies workers thought he was a passenger and were looking for the driver under the car. Obviously this claim can't be avoided.

But no matter what I think of the cause of the accident, I follow the law for worker's comp. My goal is always to get the employee back to work. If things turn sour with the employee during the case then I have found the chances of them returning to work decrease. So it is in everyone's best interests to keep things professional and helpful.

We also don't pay for appts or physical therapy. We will allow the employee to use their paid time off.

I find CAIW's responses very interesting.He spends a lot of time explaining the intricacies of a system that even professionals find confusing.

[Pattymd]

He rolled 3 times, went off the road, hit a sign for beer then came to rest against a tree.

You sure that beer wasn't already IN him?

[HRinMA]

There was no mention in police or hospital reports about possible intoxication. Also the time line seemed too tight. He left work with a loaner car (car dealership) to drive to a customer who lived near him on Cape Cod and got hit on the way. Mgrs were required to punch the time clock so we know what time he left the dealership.

The road was very narrow with trees on either side which limited his ability to recover control after being hit.

He was out months and even when he returned he had problems with memory as he had head injuries.

We did have a mgr driving a high end sports car drunk. He went into a ditch and when it was towed to our shop it had grass and dirt stuck in the grill. The joke was he thought it was an off road vehicle. Amazingly he didn't get fired because he was a high producer. He did lose his demo as our insurance wouldn't cover him.

[ElleMD]

We treat work injuries the same as any other. Appointments need to be made around work hours whenever possible in either case. Some of this is due to the industry. In the extremely rare case that it is not possible to wchedule around work, we do not charge the employee leave for the time spent in the apppointment. If they opt to take the whole day off for a half hour PT appointment they may with approval (same as any other absence) but we will charge them their own leave for this.

As for fault, it really cuts both ways. I've seen claims that are the result of what should have been obvious or should have been reported conditions, those which were the result of carelessness by the employee and those which were just fluke accidents.

I've also had family members who were injured at work. Most minor, but unfortunately a few were life threatening. It is always a balancing act between doing what needs to be done to get the injured worker back to maximum health possible and meeting the needs of the business, coworkers and clients. Something has to fall on the business related side of that equation and most often it is paid time off for doctor's appointments and treatment. If a business can do that, great, but as it isn't legally required outside of CT, and can cause a LOT of resentment among coworkers as well as logistical problems, sometimes, it just isn't feasible.

[HRinMA]

In my current position I have not had to deal with any car accidents.

In my prior position the employees returned before their FML was up and were not termed.

However in any worker's comp case; regardless of whether I thought the employee was at fault, I would leave termination as an option in case it was in the best interest of the company.

[HR/DisMgr]

rear-ended,

No, we would not consider termination for employees involved in motor vehicle accidents (unless the accidents were due to drugs or alcohol--which I have never had). I get several a year and we make sure our employees are well taken care of and get the treatment they need.

We rarely terminate when someone files a comp claim. The incident I referenced earlier is an exception. We wrote an employee up for climbing the shelves rather than using a ladder. Less than a week later, he did it again and broke his ankle. We did pick up the claim, but also terminated for insubordination. That situation is very rare.

[mcarson87]

So you sometimes, although rarely, terminate an employee for filing a WC claim? Wow; at least you're honest, I guess.