How workers' compensation works.
We're going to talk about that today.
Hi there.
I'm Angela Brown, and this is Ask a House Cleaner.
This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question,
and I get to help you find an answer.
Now, today's show is brought to us by MyCleaningConnection.com.
On there, there's a bunch of resources for you as an employer to help you run your cleaning
business, and there's information in there in a legal section on workers' compensation
and what you need to know.
All right.
Today's question comes from a house cleaner who asks this ...
Speaker 2: Hi, Angela.
I have a small cleaning company, and I'm ready to expand.
The only thing that's holding me back are the taxes and fees and stuff for hiring new
cleaners, like workers' comp.
I was wondering, what do I do to get those funds, or how do I hire more people without
breaking the bank?
Thank you.
Angela Brown: All right.
So, that's kind of a loaded question.
Where do you get the money and the resources to get all the legal stuff
ready for your business? Okay.
Well, let's talk about workers' compensation for a little bit and how that works because
the more you understand, the easier it's going to be to make that decision, all right?
The very first thing that you need to know about workers' compensation is it's an insurance
that protects you as the business owner against negligent job injuries.
So, if somebody gets injured on the job, instead of you going bankrupt because they sued you
for a bunch of money for their injuries, the insurance kicks in, and it pays their medical bills.
Now, yes, it's expensive, but it's more expensive if you have to file a claim because then your
insurance premiums are going to go through the roof, not just for that one employee,
but for all of your employees.
All right.
So, what is workers' compensation, and how can you utilize it to the best of your advantage?
All right, now, the very first thing that we have to realize is training.
When it comes to training house cleaners, it is very important that they understand
what proper protective equipment is.
This is the personal protective equipment that you wear when you're cleaning.
This might be gloves when you're using an abrasive cleaner, or maybe a disposable face
mask if you're breathing something that might have a heavy inhalation fumes while you're
cleaning a house.
Not standard for regular chemicals that we use, but if there is a heavy-duty job and
you have to use something special, you need personal protective equipment.
So, you need ventilation and all the things that we learn in OSHA, which is one of the
reasons that you want to study your workplace safety so that you don't have complaints from
on-the-job injuries.
Now, house cleaning does not really lend itself to a lot of on-the-job injuries, right?
Even if you're on a three-foot step ladder and you fall off, you're falling off onto
a carpeted floor, right?
That's not something that's going to crack and break all the bones in your body.
So, if you're following protocol in your company, it's not likely that you're ever going to
have to file a workman's' comp claim while your house cleaning, okay?
This is not like you're on the side of a building and you might fall off
while you're washing windows.
You're inside someone's house using a vacuum, okay?
So, can you skip it?
No, you cannot.
In most states around the United States, workers' compensation is mandatory with some really
steep penalties.
I know in the state of Illinois, for example, if you don't have proper workman's' comp
for your people, it's a minimum three-year prison sentence and fines up to $500 a day.
It's a very steep penalty.
You do not want to mess with this.
If you are required to have workman's' comp, you want to make sure that you offer that
to your employees.
All right.
So, here's how it works.
Workman's' comp is in insurance, but it's predicated on a bunch of rules and behaviors
as to how the situation is treated., and it's a very gray area.
So, immediately if you have a workman's' comp claim, you want to jump into gear and
do a couple of things.
As the business owner, you want to have forms that your employees can fill out that are
on-the-job injury forms.
I was injured on the job, and they need to fill it out immediately.
And then as an employer, you need to file that immediately.
Then go get an attorney immediately
because this is not going to be an easy or an inexpensive process.
Now, there are a couple of things that we know about attorneys.
They bill by the hour, so there is no incentive whatsoever for them to make this quick, decisive,
and be done with it, okay?
They're going to stretch this out as long as possible.
No offense to my attorney friends; this is just how they make their money, okay?
Now the next thing that you have to know is insurance companies make their money by charging
premiums to companies and hoping that they never have to pay out.
So, they're going to stretch this out as long as possible without making payments to your
employee so that they don't have to make the payments either.
This is going to become a really elongated process, and typically, workers' compensation
claims take months and years to resolve.
So, what you want to do as an employer is you want to have rules and regulations in
place upfront that says if you are injured on the job, you must come tell me immediately,
you must fill out an on-the-job injury form immediately, and you must take a drug test
immediately.
What you're doing is you're protecting yourself as the employer against things that could
be their fault from being inebriated or showing up to the job intoxicated.
So, you want to cover your bases first.
Now, on the other side, if you are the employee and you get injured on the job, you want to
make sure that you fill out the job injury form immediately, and you want to have proof.
So, after you fill it out, make sure you take a snapshot of it with your cellphone because
you will need it for court.
Now, if it's possible, you want to make sure that you have a witness, and so if you can
call a friend over and say, "Hey, I've been injured.
Can you come give me a ride home," and your friend comes over, it's great if your friend
will witness you filling out the on-the-job injury form.
Okay, great.
Now that we've covered that, now there is a record for your boss, and there's a record
for you.
The next step is you're going to go to the doctor.
The doctor is going to do a thorough evaluation of how badly you were injured, and that initial
interview or diagnosis is going to be crucial to what happens next.
So, you want to make sure as the employee, under no circumstances that you missed telling
the doctor this was an on-the-job injury, okay?
He needs to know that, and that needs to go in your file.
That's one more documentation that you reported it immediately.
A lot of workers' compensation cases fall through right at this very phase because either
it wasn't reported immediately or there's no proof that it was reported immediately.
So, you want to make sure that it is reported immediately.
All right.
Then the next thing is once this is reported and you go into the workers' compensation
system, now you have what's called an active file.
Once you have an active file, then you're going to go in for medical treatments.
This could be injections, it could be therapy, it could be a surgery, it could be a whole
host of different things that the doctor is doing to try to get you back to your normal
state so you can go back to work.
That's the end goal.
Now, while you're in that phase, you are entitled to some fees or some money, and so one of
those would be all of your medical expenses being paid, whether that's prescriptions,
whether that's the surgeries, whether that's the therapy, you are entitled to have all
of that paid for you.
Then the other thing that you are entitled to is a wage loss.
Now, you're taken off work because you're injured, and the doctor will determine how
long your injured; whether you can go back on light duty or whether you have to come
off of work altogether until your injury is healed, depending on the scope of your injury.
Now, in most cases, you are entitled a portion of your wages, which is like 66% of your previous
earnings previous to the injury.
So, if you are only part-time and you only earned ... I'm just making this up ... $400
a week, you're entitled to 66% of your $400 a week.
That will cover you, some coverage.
It's not going to give you your full wages, but it's going to give you some money while
you're out and you're recovering.
All right?
So then what happens once you have reached what's called MMI.
This is the maximum medical improvement.
So, the doctors say, "We've done everything we possibly can do here as well as you're
going to be," then you go to the next phase.
Once they give you that, "Okay, we're done with you," then it goes to a couple of things.
There is a pre-hearing, and so what happens is the insurance attorney and your attorney
get together and they go meet with the judge.
The judge says, "Okay.
Here's the scenario.
Here's what we're going to do.
Here's the end."
And you say, "Okay, great," and you take your money and you either go back to work or you
go to the next phase.
The next phase requires mediation, and what that is the boss, you, your attorney, your
boss's attorney, and the judge, and they get together and they decide what comes next.
Now, what comes next might be that there's a settlement of some sort and you are awarded
some kind of a disability.
The disability will be long-term.
Let's say you can never go back to work, then they will give you a percentage of whatever
they feel the disability is worth.
This is based on the American Medical Association and the guidelines that they have for disabilities.
So, this is not made up, but you will be awarded something.
Now, if you agree to that, great.
That's the end.
If you don't agree to it and you protest it, then there will be a hearing.
Now, this is where it gets really sticky and it drags on, like I said, for years.
So, you need to be really careful about the whole workers' compensation scenario because
it can become very lengthy, it can become very expensive in attorney fees, and it can
just create a whole lot of bad will in your company.
And if you're not careful, it can bankrupt your company.
The whole purpose of workers' compensation is to have an insurance that covers you in
the event that something like this happens.
My suggestion to you would be in the very beginning, set all of your rules and regulations
in place and then make sure that you have things in place like drug testing for on-the-job
injuries.
It's just mandatory.
It's not optional.
If you report an on-the-job injury, immediately, before you go home, there will be a drug test,
and that needs to be set up front in your initial interview so there are no surprises.
Then the next thing is you got to make sure that you have it in place.
You cannot skip the workers' compensation for employees that you have.
You do not want to go to jail over this, and you do not want to be fined very steep fines
for avoiding it or thinking the rules don't apply to you.
So, the secret to worker's compensation is immediacy every step along the way.
These are just some broad strokes.
If you ever find yourself in a situation where you need workers' compensation or you have
to file a claim immediately, go hire an attorney, okay?
Get all of your questions answered.
These are just some broad strokes.
The secret is immediacy.
Every step along the way, you need to make immediate decisions because once a decision
is made at any of the phases along the process, there's a certain window of time where you
can refute to that, and if you don't refute it, you lose your privileges.
So, you really need to understand it, and you need to understand this is not a game.
So, how do you do workers' compensation and not go broke?
The secret is understand the rules.
Be very crystal clear about what it is and know that a lot of this is based on the training
that you provide your employees.
So, if you take all of the safety precautions and you have rules and regulations in place
for how your employees behave while they're on the job, that will eliminate a lot of the
on-the-job injuries from negligence and working improperly.
All right.
I hope that helps a little bit.
I hope that opened a window into what the possibilities are so that you can move forward.
All right. If you found this helpful,
please recommend it to a friend, and until we meet again,
leave the world a cleaner place than when you found it.
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