If you have a work-related injury or illness, your employer is required by law to pay for workers' compensation benefits. You could get hurt by:

One event at work, such as hurting your back in a fall, getting burned by a chemical that splashes on your skin or getting hurt in a car accident while making deliveries.

--or--

Repeated exposures at work, such as hurting your wrist from doing the same motion over and over or losing your hearing because of constant loud noise.

1. Report the injury to your employer by telling your supervisor right away. If your injury or illness developed over time, report it as soon as you learn or believe it was caused by your job.  Reporting promptly helps prevent problems and delays in receiving benefits, including medical care you may need. If your employer does not learn about your injury within 30 days and this prevents your employer from fully investigating the injury and how you were injured, you could lose your right to receive workers' compensation benefits.
2. Get emergency treatment if you need it. Your employer may tell you where to go for treatment. Tell the health care provider who treats you that your injury or illness is job-related.
3. Fill out a claim form and give it to your employer. Your employer must give or mail you a claim form within one working day after learning about your injury or illness. 

Yes. Giving the completed form to your employer opens your workers' compensation case. It starts the process for finding all benefits you may qualify for under state law. Those benefits include, but are not limited to:

• A presumption that your injury or illness was caused by work if your claim is not accepted or denied within 90 days of giving the completed claim form to your employer
• Up to $10,000 in treatment under medical treatment guidelines while the claims administrator considers your claim
• An increase in your disability payments if they're late
• A way to resolve any disagreements between you and the claims administrator over whether your injury or illness happened on the job, the medical treatment you receive, and whether you will receive permanent disability benefits.

Workers' comp insurance provides five basic benefits:

1. Medical care: Paid for by your employer to help you recover from an injury or illness caused by work
2. Temporary disability benefits: Payments if you lose wages because your injury prevents you from doing your usual job while recovering
3. Permanent disability benefits: Payments if you don't recover completely
4. Supplemental job displacement benefits (if your date of injury is in 2004 or later): Vouchers to help pay for retraining or skill enhancement if you don't recover completely and don't return to work for your employer
5. Death benefits: Payments to your spouse, children or other dependents if you die from a job injury or illness.

Before an injury or illness occurs, your employer must:

• Obtain workers' compensation insurance or qualify to become self-insured
• When hiring a new employee, provide a workers' compensation pamphlet explaining the employee's rights and responsibilities
• Post the workers' compensation poster in a place where all employees can see it.

After an injury or illness occurs, your employer must:

• Provide a workers' compensation claim form to you within one working day a work-related injury or illness is reported
• Return a completed copy of the claim form to you within one working day of receipt
• Forward the claim form, along with the employer's report of occupational injury or illness, to the claims administrator within one working day of receipt
• Within one day of receiving your claim, authorize up to $10,000 inappropriate medical treatment
• Provide transitional work (light duty) whenever appropriate
• If you are the victim of a crime that happened at work, the employer must give notice of workers' compensation eligibility within one working day of the crime.