Hospitals To Injured Nurses: Your Injuries Are Not Our Problem
NPR recently did an investigative series about injured nurses and how their respective employers treat them and their injuries. NPR notes that nursing employees suffer more debilitating back and other body injuries that almost any other occupation, and most of those injuries are caused by lifting and moving patients.
State law requires companies to cover employees’ medical bills when they are injured doing their jobs. companies also have to pay workers’ compensation to support injured employees while they’re missing work-and missing their paychecks.
Nurses are employees of the hospitals where they work and are covered by the workers’ compensation laws in the state where they work. No other state but Ohio has a state funded workers compensation program, so it’s critically important to hire a lawyer licensed and experienced to practice in the state where you are injured.
NPR’s investigation determined that nurses in Hospitals throughout the country all get injured and that the majority of the Hospital Administrators view nurses as second-class citizens. It is also common place for hospital officials to ignore what their occupational medical staff said. In fact, the the medical specialist at Mission Hospital told NPR that whenever they examined injured employees, they were required to fill out a form with the employee’s name, date of injury, and diagnosis, followed by a section with two boxes: “In our opinion, injury or illness is” or “is not work related.” Hospital officials ordered the occupational health staff not to check either box, sources told NPR. Instead, hospital administrators filled them out-even if they had not seen the injured employee. Check out NPR’s complete article here.
In Ohio, Cleveland in particular, practically all hospital employees are employed by two large self-insured hospitals. “Self-insured” means that the employer has elected to pay coverage dollar for dollar. This gives them the reason to contest claims the most.
Both the injured workers and the employers in Ohio have due process rights. This means both are entitled to notice of any hearings, representation at all levels of the workers compensation system and the right to object to various matters such as allowance of a claim, authorization of testing and treatment and payment of compensation.
Additionally, as this national news article indicates, hospitals are contesting or fighting the claims pf nurses on the issue of causation. This means what was the exact cause of the alleged condition. A nurse could have done the same procedure 100 times but on the 101 time strained her back. This is where the employer, is contesting the claim.
It’s incumbent on all injured nurses in Ohio to hire effective legal counsel for all workers’ compensation injuries. The hospitals in Ohio and in Cleveland have many lawyers working for them and you should have an attorney helping you. At Taubman Law, we will gather all medical details and show how this incident differed from previous ones.
It’s important to note the injured worker bears the burden to prove his or her case by a preponderance of the evidence. The employer does not have to prove that the injured worker did not get hurt on the job and has the right to make the injured worker meet the burden of proof.
Taubman Law does this type of thing hundreds of times a year and can assist you in proving your case, we are the best and stand heads above the rest.
At Taubman Law We Make Workers’ Comp Work For You! Contact Us If You’ve EVER Been Injured While Working. Feel free to reach out to me, Bruce Taubman. Let us Help You Get The Compensation, Treatment, Benefits You Deserve. We Don’t Get Paid Unless You Get Paid.
This post was written by Bruce Taubman, an attorney in Cleveland, Ohio, who has been practicing plaintiff work for nearly 40 years. You can reach out to Bruce at brucetaubman[at]taubmanlaw.net.
