Has one of your workers made a claim through WorkCover QLD and you’re unsure about your employer obligations? Understanding your responsibilities is crucial to ensuring a smooth and compliant claims process. In this how-to guide, we will discuss your employer obligations for WorkCover QLD claims. By adhering to these guidelines, you can help support your employee’s recovery while fulfilling your legal duties.
What are your Employer obligations for WorkCover QLD claims?
As an employer, you’re required to support your worker through the rehabilitation, early and safe return to work stage. Upon injury, notify WorkCover and report the incident. If the worker needs time off or medical treatment, you are responsible for lodging a WorkCover claim. In addition to your employer obligations for WorkCover QLD claims, you’re also responsible for helping or providing an injured worker who has sustained an injury with rehabilitation.
Throughout this process, you must maintain open communication with the worker during the recovery and return to work process, even if they are off work due to their injury. Moreover, to support somebody’s return to work, employers must offer suitable work if they cannot do their usual job. These are known as ‘suitable’ or ‘light’ duties. As an employer, you need to identify what duties are available and develop a return-to-work plan. An employer will also need to monitor the progress of a worker’s return to work until they are completely cleared by frequent check ins. They must also update the return-to-work plan when workers have been upgraded from any medical restrictions.
If employers are having difficulty throughout this process, employers can engage a rehabilitation consultant to help design a RTW plan that aligns with a worker’s medical restrictions.
Reporting an injury as an employer
As an employer, you must report a work-related injury within eight days of becoming aware of it. However, it is important to note that reporting an injury is not the same as making a claim for workers’ compensation. You will still need to lodge a separate claim after you obtain consent from the worker. A medical certificate is not required to report an injury, and can be reported through the WorkCover Connect Portal or the online injury report form on the Worksafe QLD website.
Putting in a claim for a worker as an employer
Employers can make a claim or access information on existing claims through the WorkCover Connect portal. The RTW Coordinator or approved employer contacts will have access to this portal. When worker consent is obtained, employers can start the claim process on the worker’s behalf via the following avenues:
- Complete and submit an online claim
- Phone 1300 362 128 and talk to a member of the WorkCover team
Details that you will need to include in your online claim are:
- Worker’s full name, date of birth and personal contact information
- Employer’s policy number
- The type of injury and details about how and when it happened
- Copy of the worker’s work capacity certificate
Benefits of outsourcing your return to work obligations
The benefits of engaging a rehab provider to meet your employer obligations for WorkCover QLD claims are:
- Conducting worksite assessments to identify suitable duties
- Act as an independent third party, separate from the employer and WorkCover
- Develop a return to work (suitable duties) plan in consultation with worker and employer.
- Liaising with all key stakeholders to ensure parties are aware of the workers return to work.
- Injury management advice for all parties involved which includes providing expert advice on managing injuries, medical restrictions and any barriers/issues that may arise in the return to work process.
- Provide expert opinions and solutions to help resolve workplace injuries.
- Able to identify and address risk factors/barriers that can potentially impact a workers return to work in the future.
- Rehab providers can also provide other services to support a workers return to work such as:
- Functional Capacity Evaluation/Assessment
- Job task analysis
- Vocational Assessments and Vocational Counselling to explore alternative vocational options if workers are unable to return to their same role.
How we can help
Return to Work Coordination
An employee’s return to work following injury or illness can be a delicate process that needs to be carefully managed. Recovery Partners offers a complete RTW Coordination service for businesses wanting to manage this process efficiently and with sensitivity to the needs of their employees. We have delivered RTW Coordination throughout our entire 19 years of service, and continue to deliver outstanding results with our overall RTW success rate standing at 99% for our customers.
Functional Assessments
Providing an accurate gauge of capacity, Functional Assessments evaluate an individual’s capacity to perform physical and/or psychological tasks and offer a baseline measurement of ability.Â
Our qualified allied health team including Physiotherapists, Occupational Therapists, Exercise Physiologists, and Psychologists, perform these assessments within a controlled environment e.g. consultation rooms.Â
These assessments help us to understand an individual’s functional tolerances for physical and/or psychological activities following a noted health condition that has limited their performance previously.
Injury Reporting Centre
The Injury Reporting Centre (IRC) operates as a 24-hour service managed by our team of experienced allied health consultants dedicated to assisting injured workers. Our team will streamline all aspects of the reporting process and ensure that all your legal obligations, including safety compliance reporting and occupational injury reporting, are efficiently met.
The Injury Reporting Centre (IRC) team will directly contact individuals in the aftermath of incidents. Our Online Injury Reporting Centre enables us to swiftly develop recommendations for action. They can also liaise effectively among all parties, including you, your staff member, and other stakeholders such as insurers, treating doctors, and treatment providers. Through our robust employee safety reporting mechanism and workplace incident management, we ensure timely and comprehensive communication, facilitating seamless collaboration for incident documentation.
Want to find out more?
Our services are available nationwide. Our consultants love to have a chat, so go ahead and give us a call on 1300 OHS RTW (647 789) or email enquiries@rrp.com.au
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Disclaimer – these articles are provided to supply general safety information to people responsible for OHS in their organisation. They are general in nature and do not substitute for legal and/or professional advice. We always suggest that organisations obtain information specific to their needs. Additional information can be found at https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/Â