While a hospital is one of the safest places you can be if you are already dealing with a serious injury or illness, it can be a deceptively dangerous place if you are a healthy person working in a professional capacity with patients. Even worse, filing a workers’ compensation claim over a work-related injury you suffered inside a healthcare facility can be trickier than you might expect—especially if you are not sure whether you are even covered by workers’ comp in the first place.
Fortunately, you have support available from experienced workplace injury lawyers who understand the unique hazards that come with this type of job and can help you enforce your right to recovery after getting hurt or sick while working. If you have suffered any kind of serious hospital workplace injury in Las Vegas, contacting Shook & Stone for help should be among your top priorities.
Are All Healthcare Workers Covered by Workers’ Comp?
Under Nevada state law, every company or corporation with at least one full-time or part-time employee is required to purchase and maintain workers’ compensation insurance coverage for all their employees. Additionally, all licensed contractors who employ independent contractors and/or supervise subcontractors are generally considered employers of the people doing contract work for them, which means they are usually required to make sure those contract workers have access to workers’ comp coverage or some other form of industrial insurance coverage.
Thus, with very few exceptions, anyone who performs any kind of work inside a hospital or healthcare facility in Las Vegas is likely covered by workers’ comp if they suffer a job-related injury or illness—even if their job duties do not involve directly providing medical services to patients. Exactly who is responsible for providing coverage to a specific worker, though, can sometimes be a trickier question to answer, and one which a skilled legal professional can provide crucial assistance with.
What Makes a Hospital Injury or Illness “Work-Related”?
To reiterate, though, workers’ comp only covers job-related injuries in Las Vegas hospitals—so, for example, a surgeon who slipped and fell in their driveway while getting into their car to drive to work would not be covered, since their injury occurred outside the direct scope of their employment. However, if that same surgeon slipped and fell while scrubbing up for a procedure, they would likely be covered by workers’ comp for any ensuing injury, since they were in the course of performing their normal job duties when they got hurt.
Importantly, this means workers’ comp can also cover occupational illnesses, which can be traced directly back to hospital work, as well as diseases transferred from patients to their treating physicians or someone else working near them in the hospital where they were receiving treatment. Once again, guidance from a knowledgeable workers’ comp lawyer can be key to understanding the options available in your unique situation and taking full advantage of them.
Get Help from a Las Vegas Attorney After a Hospital Workplace Injury
Being diligent about sanitation procedures and general workplace safety is important just about everywhere, but it can be a matter of life and death inside hospitals and other similar facilities. Nevertheless, accidental injuries and illnesses do still happen in places like this, and as you may unfortunately already be learning, they can wreak havoc on both your personal and professional life.
Workers’ comp claims over hospital workplace injuries in Las Vegas are not the kind of thing you want to try handling on your own. Instead, reach out to our team at Shook & Stone to learn how we can help you get the benefits you deserve.
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