Reporting work injuries early allows an employer to investigate the cause of the accident and correct safety problems before being cited for an OSHA violation and/or before a coworker is hurt more seriously or even killed.
If you’re hurt on the job and fail to report the injury immediately, your opportunity for a workers’ compensation claim may be diminished or denied, meaning you could lose out on valuable medical help or compensation for lost work time. Alerting an employer to an injury can also allow you to seek treatment before the injury becomes worse and leads to more missed work time, bigger medical bills, and higher workers’ compensation costs.