Workers’ compensation is a complex system. However, the purpose is simple. The original intent was to provide workers like you a way to stand up to large, powerful businesses.
Unfortunately, this system was a compromise from the very beginning. Rather than pitting an employer against an employee — a situation that almost always ending with the employer winning — the new law mandated essentially automatic compensation for injuries. In practice, this placed the interests of large insurance companies against those of individual injured workers — albeit with many more rules than before.
The problem with workers’ compensation
The current system invites you to rely on the goodwill of insurance companies. Of course, these organizations also operate within a complex and strict regulatory environment.
Can you depend on your employer’s insurer to have your best interests at heart and to operate wholly in good faith? To follow the spirit — not the letter — of regulations?
The answer, of course, is that most of these companies work toward their own best interests to the greatest extent possible. They are often more concerned with their own bottom lines then they are with the welfare of workers.
Options within the system
Self-interest and greed at the expense of others is by no means a foreign concept in business. Luckily, workers’ compensation could offer options for you if you are not getting what you deserve.
For example, you could have an opportunity to overturn an unjust denial of benefits. You might also be able to access different healthcare providers, better types of treatment or other benefits that the insurer does not want to bestow.
Workers’ compensation is not a perfect system. However, you may have more power than you expect. At the very least, you almost certainly have more options than your employer and their insurance company want you to know about.