If you are injured at work then you should see a doctor. Not only can they give you appropriate advice, but their notes will be crucial to your workers’ compensation claim.
Yet you might also want to ask questions about your injury and how best to recover from it on online forums or social media. It allows you to benefit from the collective experience of others who may have had or treated similar injuries to you, even when they live on the other side of the world. However, doing so could prove problematic for your claim.
It is easy to say the wrong thing
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with seeking advice on the internet. You might learn some useful tips that your doctor does not know about or has not thought to tell you. It can also be reassuring to hear from others who have been in your situation and managed to make a good recovery. It can give you hope that you too will be OK.
The problem is that insurers sometimes monitor claimants’ online activity for information that could allow them to dispute a claim.
To get an accurate answer from others, you may post intimate details of your condition. You may write something that suggests your injury is not as serious as the doctor assessed it to be. Or that you are recovering far sooner than they thought you would. If the insurer sees this, they may use it to say the doctor’s assessment (on which the compensation amount would have been based) was wrong. Or they may claim you appear to be fit to return to work much sooner than predicted.
Learning more about how the workers’ compensation process works makes it less likely you do something that harms your claim.