I got hurt kinda badly on the job a few weeks back and so far the process has been agonizing between a RN that didn’t believe I was in pain, an employer that seems to be laying groundwork for firing me a and a worker’s comp insurance company that is more than a little loose with the timing of their payments. The whole thing has me pretty anxious, unable to do most things I enjoy and in a whole boatload of pain.
Anyone had an experience with an on-the-job injury? How’d it go? Any tales of full healing and victory over disability to brighten my outlook?
If you’re in the US, absolutely this. My back was injured on the job, took the work comp doctors almost 6 months to figure that out, and when they did my employer fired me. Then worker’s comp tried to say they didn’t need to pay anything and tried to close my case.
Up until that point I had resisted getting a lawyer, naively trusting the system (I was young, and I had no back issues before so I honestly thought common sense would prevail). My lawyer’s fees were a percent of whatever the final settlement was (30% iirc but this was over a decade ago). It took more than 2 years from when I got injured to come to a settlement.
I do have chronic pain and have had to change or give up certain parts of my life. But once the worker’s comp case was closed I could finally choose my own doctors, and my pain is much more manageable because of it.
Probably not the triumphant story you were looking for, but you can get through this. It doesn’t seem like it now, I remember being in the thick of it. My pain was so bad I couldn’t sleep, and the worker’s comp doctor told me I “just needed to take some Tylenol.”
It won’t always be this way. Just remember that, and get a lawyer.