If You Are Hurt At Work

If you have been hurt at work…It is required that you report the incident to your employer as soon as possible and fill out the appropriate forms. It is advisable to visit your doctor who will recommend physiotherapy if needed. This recommendation should be forwarded to your employer as well as a WSIB (Worker’s Safety and Insurance Board, formerly known as Worker’s Compensation) nurse case manager and/or case manager assigned to your claim. After careful review of the claim, treatment will then be authorized and physiotherapy can be initiated. Usually, a treatment of 8-12 weeks is allowed if needed.

Upon assessment of your condition, the physiotherapist along with your doctor, your employer and the WSIB nurse case manager will discuss and decide on the following issues:

• appropriate time off work to allow for healing
• return to work plan including possibility of modified duties for a specific time period or graduated hours until full time hours have been reached

Often, the employer or the WSIB nurse case manager requires an assessment of the worker’s abilities and will ask the physiotherapist to fill out a Functional Abilities form which describes what activities you can and cannot perform due to your injury. This helps determine how fit you are to return to normal work duties.

The billing for services paid by WSIB is direct, meaning that the patient does not have to pay first and then get reimbursed. This only applies if we have been provided approval of the claim directly from WSIB. WSIB will pay for the services rendered.

Summary of Specific Steps For WSIB Clients Before your initial assessment can be booked, you must have approval for your WSIB claim. To speed up the process of claim approval:

• Notify your employer about your injury: make sure he/she completes a Form 7 and faxes it in to WSIB as quickly as possible.
• Visit your family doctor: make sure he/she completes a Form 8 and faxes it to WSIB.
• Once WSIB gets those two forms, you will receive a Form 6 in the mail which needs to be completed and returned in to WSIB
• Contact WSIB on a weekly basis to check on the status of your claim number.Once a claim number has been assigned to you, you will be assigned a case manager and a nurse case manager. Write down their names and extension numbers to keep in your own claim file.
• Contact the case manager periodically until your claim is approved.

Re-occurrence Injury: Report your re-occurrence to WSIB immediately. WSIB will send out re-occurrence forms that you and your doctor need to complete and return to them.

Starting Treatment Before Claim is Approved: You can choose to start treatment before your claim is approved, but you must pay our standard therapy rates. Once claim approval is confirmed, we can start to bill WSIB for your treatment as of the date that approval has been given to us by WSIB. Payment for any treatment already received before that date, will not be re-imbursed.

Keep this WSIB phone number handy: 416-344-1000