Large companies with dozens of employees often have relatively extensive employment infrastructure. In addition to robust employment contracts and worker benefits, companies may have certain on-site amenities available. For example, some businesses offer in-house gyms and cafeterias, as well as showers.
Businesses in the industrial or manufacturing sectors sometimes have on-site physicians available to treat workers if they get hurt on the job. Often, employees injured at work may be eligible for workers’ compensation benefits. Their employers provide them with coverage that defrays their medical costs and can even replace their wages while they are unable to work during their recovery.
The duration of workers’ compensation benefits and a worker’s eligibility to receive them may largely depend on a medical professional’s evaluation of their condition. If there is an on-site doctor available, does an injured worker have to receive medical care from that specific professional?
Workers have the right to choose their doctors
Every state has slightly different workers’ compensation rules. Those who do a cursory search for information about workers’ compensation benefits on the internet might receive inaccurate information.
For example, they might read that their employer gets to select the doctor who treats them. That is true in some jurisdictions. Thankfully, that is not the case for employees in Illinois. Workers generally have the right to choose their doctor. Often, that means employees can choose their own primary care physician or another health care professional who they trust.
Sometimes, workers have to select one doctor from a panel of eligible candidates provided by their employer. However, the employer cannot dictate that the workers see one specific physician. Such arrangements could result in a conflict of interest that might put the worker at an unfair disadvantage.
Employers might send an injured worker to an on-site doctor for immediate stabilization of their condition before they go elsewhere for diagnosis and treatment. Workers do have the option of seeing the on-site doctor if they trust that physician. In many cases, however, selecting an outside physician is the best option available.
Learning more about the rules that apply during a workers’ compensation claim may help employees get the support they require. The right to choose a treating physician is an important worker protection.