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A new study by the Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI) asks whether employees injured at work are more likely to file under workers’ compensation instead of group health insurance when their group health plan has a higher deductible. That’s interesting but it misses the real issue. The real question is why an injured worker would ever consider seeking medical care outside the workers’ compensation system at all. Really? Workers’ compensation systems were enacted in Alabama (and other states) to provide basic benefits like medical treatment. If those systems worked as intended, this would be a non-issue. Yet, workers consider using private health insurance because the work comp system has largely failed its primary purpose.
I speak with injured workers on a daily basis. Almost all of them have one goal. They want to get better and resume their normal life with work and family.
The WCRI research article wrongly frames the issue as a decision based simply upon medical deductibles. Let’s really examine why an injured worker would consider private health insurance (instead of work comp) in the first place. Injured workers should face NO barriers obtaining necessary medical care under workers compensation. But, they do. Those barriers are substantial and unjust. Here are three big ones:
In a work comp system full of barriers, private health insurance may initially sound appealing to injured workers. Yet, the choice to use private insurance is a huge risk. What if the injury does not heal? What if the worker is left partially or totally disabled? Because the worker may not have reported or treated the condition under work comp, he or she may be left unable to recover important disability benefits. Nobody thinks they will become disabled. Some people do. The wrong choice for treatment can close the door to important disability benefits.
Injured workers deserve better. We all deserve better. When comp carriers push injured workers into using private group health coverage or government benefits, it shifts the costs to the rest of us.
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At the Blackwell Law Firm, we represent injured workers. We work hard to help our clients obtain the maximum compensation benefits available. We have tried cases in courts across Alabama.