If you suffer an injury while at work, you should be able to get any medical treatment ad for out of your employer’s insurance policy. Workers’ compensation is a type of payment that helps injured workers get back on their feet through a payment for medical treatment and a partial payment for lost earnings. Insurers don’t always accept a clam for compensation and may decide to deny the claim. This can be a difficult and worrying time for any worker who is recovering from a workplace injury. You may be able to file an appeal if all else fails. Appeals shouldn’t be taken lightly and it is important to try and find out why your claim was denied in the first place. Contact Harris Teeter’s Insurance Company If you receive a denied claim notification in the mail, check to see if the reason for the claim is provided in sufficient detail to challenge it if you think it is wrong. In many cases, an insurer sends out an automatic denied claim notification if they haven’t received any information about the correct date of your injury. This could have happened if there was a slip up at your workplace. Check with both the office at Harris Teeter and the insurer directly. If there was a discrepancy, the insurer may have thought that you were not injured while at work and that the injury could have happened at home, for instance. Simple administrative errors of this type should be easily sorted out, but it may be more difficult if you didn’t let your supervisor or employer know about the incident that led to your injury. File Your Harris Teeter Workers’ Comp. Appeal If you think that the insurer’s reasons for denying your WC claim are not justified, you should consider filing an appeal. In most cases, this is not done with the employer, or the insurer, but with the state workers’ compensation agency representative in your nearest main center. There are strict time limits on each step of an appeal so you should find out what these are or leave it to your lawyer. State WC bodies tend to try and find a resolution of a dispute before scheduling a hearing with a judge. Judges are often very busy and there is every attempt not to waste time if an amicable understanding can be reached first. Not every attempt at mediation succeeds and then a hearing will be arranged. These are more formal affairs, presided over by a judge. The judge will listen to both sides and examine any evidence and then come to a conclusion whether to uphold the original claim or accept the reasons why it was denied. A Workers’ Compensation Attorney Can Help File an Appeal You are strongly advised to contact a workers’ compensation lawyer if you are contemplating filing an appeal against a denied claim. *Disclaimer: The content of this article serves only to provide information and should not be construed as legal advice. If you file a claim against Harris Teeter, or any other party, you may not be entitled to any compensation.
