A workplace injury can be costly to treat, which can be problematic when you’re accrued paid time off evaporates and you’re left without any income. Without financial assistance, this situation can leave you struggling to secure medical care and make ends meet, putting you at risk of a poor health outcome as well as financial issues like eviction, foreclosure and repossession. While you might be able to secure relief from the workers’ compensation system, these claims aren’t automatically approved. In fact, many of them are denied, which leaves you in a position where you’ll need to appeal the claim denial to secure the outcome that you want.
But appealing a workers’ compensation claim is no walk in the park. In fact, many injured workers make several mistakes that jeopardize the viability of their appeal. If you want to avoid that from happening in your case, then please continue to read this post to see which errors you need to avoid making as you navigate your workers’ compensation appeal.
There are several mistakes that can be made throughout the workers’ compensation claims process, including while a claim denial is appealed. Here are some of the most common that you’ll want to be sure to avoid if possible:
- Not knowing the rules: The rules applicable to a workers’ compensation appeal have to be strictly adhered to. Otherwise, your appeal will likely be dismissed, barring you from seeking the relief that you need. So, be sure to familiarize yourself with applicable deadlines and other rules relevant to your appeal so that you don’t inadvertently miss something that proves fatal to your case.
- Being long-winded and confusing: Your workers’ compensation appeal should be short and to the point. That way the individuals reviewing your case will be able to focus on the issues that you highlight. If you ramble on in your appeal, then the true legal issues can be lost, making it more difficult for you to articulate why you’re entitled to workers’ compensation benefits.
- Neglecting to provide new evidence: If you have additional evidence to support your claim that wasn’t available at the time of your initial workers’ compensation hearing, then you need to include it in your appeal. When you do so, just make sure you clearly explain how the evidence wasn’t available during the initial review of your claim so that it isn’t excluded due to a failure to present it earlier on in your case.
- Trying to do it all on your own: The laws applicable to the workers’ compensation process can be confusing. Yet, you need to know and understand them so that you can appropriately navigate them during your claim. If you try to untangle the nuances of the law on your own, then you could make a costly mistake that devastates your ability to succeed on appeal.
You need workers’ compensation benefits to offset the losses that you’ve experienced and to help you advance your recovery. But securing this financial relief is oftentimes harder than anticipated. That’s why it’s a good idea to educate yourself on the process as much as possible and consider seeking out any help that you may need along the way. By doing so, you might increase your chances of winning your case, securing financial stability and reclaiming your normal life.