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Report your workplace illness or injury right away to start your workers' compensation claim.
Your doctor can file the report that opens your claim. Or you can get the form from the Washington Department of Labor & Industries (L&I), which oversees workers’ comp.
If your employer is self-insured and doesn’t use L&I for workers’ comp, you’ll need to give your employer a copy of the accident or occupational disease report in order to start your claim.
Once the report is filed with your employer, get a copy of it and hold on to it.
Bothwell & Hamill helps people in Yakima, Kennewick, Sunnyside, Spokane, Richland, Ellensburg, Wenatchee, Walla Walla and anywhere in Central Washington.
Let us go to work to get you benefits.
You’re a hard worker. And you’re proud of the work you do. The last thing you want is an injury on the job that disrupts your work.
If it happens, though, you deserve the full protection of workers’ comp benefits.
Workers’ comp should pay for the health care you need because of your injury or any illness you developed from conditions on the job.
If you have to miss work, workers’ comp should pay a large portion of your lost wages. In some cases, it provides counseling or training to get back on the job.
As soon as you realize your health has been damaged by your work, take these two steps to start your claim:
You have one year from the date of an injury to file your claim. If you have an occupational disease, you have two years from the date of your diagnosis.
For your claim to be approved, your doctor must confirm that your health problems took place at work or resulted from work.
When your claim is approved, you should quickly receive workers’ comp benefits to cover your medical bills. Depending on your situation, you may also get payments for lost wages and return-to-work assistance.
And at Bothwell & Hamill, we don’t charge anything for you to talk to us about your case so we can help determine what’s best for you.
Get all the information you need to make the best decisions about your health — and your future.
You can face a lot of obstacles getting the maximum workers’ comp benefits available to you.
You might be denied. You might be granted smaller benefits than you should receive. Your existing benefits might be terminated.
You can feel like an underdog fighting an overwhelming system.
A lawyer who works with this system all the time can take much of the stress — and work — out of it, so you can focus on recovery.
Get Help Now! »You might have a lot of questions. Bothwell & Hamill has answers.
Common Questions »I was continually kept informed of all progress and holdups related to my case. I was very pleased…and would have no hesitation in hiring him and his firm again.”