Injury management involves the employee, employer and treating medical practitioner actively assisting an employee to remain at or return to work. This can involve planning the treatments and rehabilitation services the employee requires.
Once we confirm liability for a workers’ compensation claim, you can access a range of treatments and workplace rehabilitation services to assist your injury management.
Treatments are available to help you recover from a workplace injury. As part of your approved claim, we pay for treatments that are necessary and reasonable to aid your recovery. The treatments approved for payment include:
WorkCover WA sets the fees payable to medical and therapeutic providers. Any gap between the providers’ fees and the rate payable by us may need to be covered by you.
You can choose your own provider, however to make sure you are not out of pocket you will need to request they bill us directly using the prescribed rates.
To support you to remain at or return to work, workplace rehabilitation services may be required. In some cases, an adjustment of duties may be needed to return to work.
Workplace rehabilitation providers may offer the following services:
case management;
vocational assessment and job placement;
worksite assessment; and
functional capacity evaluation.
WorkCover WA provides a list of approved workplace rehabilitation providers.
You can claim reasonable costs for travelling to and from necessary medical and therapeutic appointments.
In order to recoup travel costs, we require evidence of travel, which may include a statement indicating appointment attended and kilometres travelled. WorkCover WA prescribes the payable rate per kilometre that we can pay.
In some situations, you may be unable to travel by personal motor vehicle or public transport to medical and therapeutic appointments. In this case, please contact your claims officer to discuss alternative arrangements.
For every claim, limits apply to the amount you may claim for reasonable and necessary workers’ compensation injury treatments.
The prescribed amount is set by WorkCover WA for medical treatments and weekly expenses. These prescribed amounts ensure that all injured employees have access to the same amount of financial assistance, though some injured employees will require more assistance than others.
You can continue to access your accrued annual and long service leave entitlements.
However, an active claim may require managing your injury through a return-to-work program. In these cases, your employer or claims officer may advise you to avoid taking annual and/or long service leave to ensure the success of your recovery.
Permanent impairment is assessed in percentage terms and expressed for each part of the body. If you are permanently injured, we will arrange a medical assessment to be conducted by an Approved Permanent Impairment Assessor.
For further information, contact your claims officer.
Despite recovering, you may experience a return of your original injury symptoms and require further treatment.
In this case you must report the injury recurrence as soon as possible to your employer after the injury returns. When reporting the recurring injury, you must provide the following documents to your employer:
current medical certificate from a General Practitioner; and
After your employer receives the recurrence of injury claim form, the completed form, medical certificate and any other supporting documents must be submitted to us within three days.
We will then review the claim and provide a decision on liability.
