They want you to think they are taking care of you. They also want you to be grateful. And they want you to know that they are watching you because it’s been their experience that so very many employees have abused the system in some fashion or another costing them more money than they should have to spend. They are the benevolent landowners and the employees are the slacking workers.
The bottom line is so important to many corporations that they will take from the workers to make sure they are always making a profit. While there is a big push for safety, the push is for the workers to be careful not for the corporations to carefully provide a safer environment. Customer first, corporation second, employees last.
So what happens when you are the victim of a corporate accident due to their negligence? I’m here to tell you that NO ONE will tell the victim what his rights are, what to expect, what choices he has, or what to prepare for. There is no ombudsman in Hawaii for accident victims of corporations. Once you get in the Workman’s Comp system you are a victim all over at the mercy of the system. A lawyer is your only hope. And even they are limited. So you pay the lawyer to ease your already tortured mental state dealing with the merciless corporations, knowing it will be costly for you in the end. The workman’s comp system is going to mess you over and spit you out if they can.
Even the doctors won’t like you because they know they will have to deal with a workman’s insurance company that does not like to pay. I’ve been told that if the workman’s insurance can find a way not to pay they will. They get between the doctors, the therapists, the health workers and the patient. They do their best to stay within the law while they seek to limit your care. Their concern is not to get you the best care possible but to get you up on your feet as quickly as they can and back to work regardless if that is going to be in your best interest. It’s all about the bottom dollar. Their biggest joy would be if you would in some manner not want to comply with their demands and just go take care of yourself.
They will send you a case worker whose job is to limit your care, to stall, to not find what you request because they think you can get by without it. If they stall long enough with what you need, or provide you with poor service, chances are you will call some friends and they will help you so that the insurance company does not have to pay. That caseworker that is supposed to be helping you does not work for you, but the insurance company who wants to spend as little money as possible. That caseworker is also there to see if you are faking your injury to any degree or to see if they can make it look like you are. This is really important, because workers in big businesses are of such a low class of people that most injured workers will try to take advantage of the situation and pretend they are still injured when they are not. This is what the corporations tell us. Thus the injured is now the enemy, a potential criminal, under suspicion, guilty until proven innocent.
But the truth is that according to the CAAA (Calif. Applicants' Attorneys Assoc.) less than one tenth of 1% of claims are of a fraudulent nature.
It is likely the caseworkers are skilled in obtuseness. If they can intimidate the doctor into saying you could do some menial task for a couple hours, then you will be back at work regardless if that is going to help your continued recovery. And then they start playing a game of which only they know the rules. Better than the Jehovah Witnesses, they have all the questions and answers memorized. If you can actually get back to the real job you were hired for you will be ever so lucky. If not, then they have legal ways of getting rid of you the burden. Even if they have by their negligence maimed you for life, they will pay precious little to help you live the rest of your life in that condition.
I seldom hear a success story about a work injury, other than finally the surgeries were obtained. This system needs to be changed. It is very similar to what the victims of rape used to go through, where the victim was considered at blame and raked through the coals if she tried to stand up for the truth and catch her assailant.
The best advice I ever heard for the victim of a work accident: be sure to get in a car accident on the way to the hospital!
TL
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