Summary. A workplace injury sets four clocks running at once: the compensation notice deadline, the OSHA reporting window, the FMLA designation obligation, and the third-party statute of limitations. This checklist runs all four in parallel, with separate tracks for the injured worker and the employer. It covers the first shift, the first week, the benefit calculation audit worth thousands of dollars and an hour of time, the utilization review appeal mechanics that decide whether treatment happens, the return-to-work steps that avoid a retaliation claim, and the settlement evaluation that should never be made without pricing future medical care.

What this checklist is for. Running the first ninety days of a workplace injury correctly. For the substantive law, see Workers Compensation: The Grand Bargain, the Claim, and the Exceptions. For the full procedural sequence, see Filing and Litigating a Workers Compensation Claim.

Phase 1 — The first shift

Injured worker

  • Report the injury now, and in writing — a text or email to a supervisor with the date, time, location, task, and every body part.
  • Get medical attention and state clearly that it happened at work, describing the mechanism specifically.
  • Name every body part that hurts, including the ones that seem minor. Adrenaline masks injuries and late-reported body parts get denied.
  • Ask what the state's medical control rule is and whether a panel or network applies.
  • Photograph the location, the equipment, and any visible injury.
  • Note every witness by name.
  • Do not sign anything describing the injury as personal, pre-existing, or non-work-related.
  • Do not resign.

Employer

  • Get the worker medical care immediately; do not delay for paperwork.
  • Secure the scene — photograph it, preserve the equipment, pull the video before it overwrites.
  • Take short written witness statements while memories are fresh.
  • Record the worker's description in the worker's own words.
  • Determine whether the injury triggers an OSHA severe-injury report: fatality within 8 hours; in-patient hospitalization, amputation, or loss of an eye within 24 hours. 29 C.F.R. Part 1904.
  • Apply the post-accident testing policy only as written and only with a documented reasonable basis.
  • Do not discipline, reassign, or discuss termination today.

Why this matters. The first medical note and the first written report are the two documents that most often decide compensability, and both are created within hours.

Phase 2 — Days two through seven

Both sides

  • Confirm the first report of injury was filed with the carrier and the state agency within the statutory window.
  • Identify the claim number, adjuster, and carrier, and record direct contact information.
  • Calendar the notice deadline, the claim filing deadline, and — separately — the third-party statute of limitations.
  • Screen for a third party: another driver, an equipment manufacturer, a property owner, a maintenance contractor, another contractor on the site, a staffing arrangement.
  • If a third party is possible, send preservation letters and stop any repair, salvage, or disposal of the equipment or vehicle.

Injured worker

  • File the employee's claim petition — do not assume the employer's report preserves the claim.
  • Begin a brief dated symptom and function journal.
  • Gather pay records for the full average weekly wage measuring period, including any second job.

Employer

  • Designate FMLA leave in writing if the worker is eligible and the injury is a serious health condition. 29 C.F.R. Part 825.
  • Record the injury on the OSHA 300 log if recordable.
  • Notify the broker or risk manager and open a reserve review.
  • Assign a single point of contact who will actually communicate with the worker.

Phase 3 — Audit the average weekly wage

Worth an hour; often worth thousands of dollars.

  • Obtain all pay records for the measuring period.
  • Confirm inclusion, where state law allows, of:
    • Overtime actually earned
    • Bonuses, commissions, and incentive pay
    • Shift differentials and premium pay
    • Employer-provided lodging, meals, or vehicle value
    • Concurrent employment — a second job
  • Confirm the measuring period is correct and that unpaid or non-working weeks are handled as the statute requires.
  • For short-tenure workers, apply the similar employee or contract-wage method rather than a depressed actual average.
  • Recompute the benefit rate and compare it to the carrier's. Object in writing if it is low.

Phase 4 — Medical treatment and authorization

  • Confirm the treating physician is within the state's medical control rules.
  • Know the one-time change of physician procedure and preserve it.
  • For every treatment request, confirm it addresses the applicable treatment guideline criteria explicitly.
  • On any utilization review denial:
    • Write the appeal deadline on the letter the day it arrives — it may be days.
    • Have the treating physician write the appeal, not the office staff.
    • Address each guideline criterion by number, attaching the imaging and conservative-care records.
    • Request peer-to-peer review where available.
  • Before an independent medical examination: bring an observer if permitted, be accurate rather than dramatic, and write down the actual duration and content of the examination immediately afterward.
  • Obtain a treating physician narrative covering job demands, mechanism, objective findings, causation, restrictions, and prognosis.
  • Avoid treatment gaps; if one is unavoidable, get the reason into the chart.

Phase 5 — Return to work

Employer

  • Maintain written light-duty job descriptions with specific physical demands.
  • Make offers in writing, identifying the restrictions accommodated and the physician who set them.
  • Assign real work. A chair in a hallway generates a constructive discharge claim.
  • Never apply a "100% healed" requirement — it is a well-established ADA violation.
  • Run an ADA interactive process for any lasting restriction, independent of the compensation claim. See Reasonable Accommodation Under the ADA.
  • Keep the compensation decision-maker separate from the employment decision-maker.

Injured worker

  • Compare each offer against the actual written restrictions.
  • If the offer exceeds restrictions, decline in writing with a copy to the treating physician — do not simply refuse.
  • Attempt suitable work in good faith; refusal can suspend benefits.

Phase 6 — Retaliation exposure review (employer)

  • No adverse action within proximity to the claim without documented, pre-existing cause.
  • Performance issues documented before the injury, if they exist.
  • Return-to-work and testing policies applied uniformly across all injured workers.
  • No statements about immigration status, hours, or scheduling tied to the claim.
  • Safety incentive programs reviewed so they do not penalize reporting.
  • Every adverse action reviewed by counsel before it is taken.

Why this matters. The compensation claim is capped by statute. The retaliation claim is not, and it goes to a jury.

Phase 7 — Maximum medical improvement and rating

  • Confirm the physician used the edition of the AMA Guides the state has adopted.
  • Verify all injured body parts were rated.
  • Verify required components — range of motion, sensory, strength — were included.
  • Verify the regional-to-whole-person conversion is correct.
  • Scrutinize apportionment: does the state require prior disability rather than mere prior pathology?
  • Consider a second rating through an agreed examiner, qualified evaluator, or the worker's own physician.
  • Calendar the objection deadline to the rating.

Phase 8 — Settlement evaluation

  • Ask the treating physician, in writing: what care will this worker need over the next twenty years, and what does it cost?
  • Compare a stipulated award with open medical against a compromise and release side by side, in dollars.
  • Address the Social Security offset with amortization language in the settlement document itself.
  • Address Medicare's interest — 42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b), 42 C.F.R. Part 411 — with a set-aside and an administration plan where required.
  • Screen for means-tested benefits and consider a special needs trust.
  • Price separately any resignation or general employment release the carrier wants included.
  • Confirm the settlement does not release the third-party tortfeasor.
  • Confirm agency or judicial approval requirements are satisfied.

Phase 9 — The third-party claim and the lien

  • Confirm the third-party statute of limitations and calendar it independently.
  • Notify the compensation carrier as the statute requires; some states transfer the right of action if the worker does not sue in time.
  • Do not settle the third-party case before addressing the lien.
  • Reduce the lien by the carrier's proportionate share of fees and costs where state law allows.
  • Negotiate the future credit — the most commonly ignored item, and often the most valuable.
  • Allocate the third-party settlement among past medical, future medical, wage loss, and non-economic damages in the settlement documents.

Related documents

This checklist is educational and not legal advice. Workers' compensation deadlines, medical control rules, rating methodologies, and settlement approval requirements are state law and differ materially. Verify every deadline against the applicable statute and agency rules.