Workplace Fairness

 You must tell your employer that you were injured within 30 days of the injury. Your employer then has 7 days to file a First Report of Injury and give you a copy.

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All public and private employers in Maine must have workers compensation insurance. There are some exemptions:

• A sole proprietor without any employees is not required to have coverage.
• An owner of at least 20% of a corporation may waive in writing all benefits provided by workers’ compensation for themselves.
• The parent, spouse, or child of a sole proprietor, partner, or bona fide owner of 20% of the voting stock may waive in writing all the benefits provided by workers’ compensation.
• Owners of limited liability companies are not required to be covered by workers’ compensation and do not need to fill out wavier forms. The parent, spouse, or child of a member of a limited liability company may waive in writing all benefits provided by workers’ compensation.
• Duly elected or appointed executive officers of charitable, religious, educational, or other nonprofit corporations are not covered by workers’ compensation insurance.
• An independent contractor is not covered by workers’ compensation insurance.

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Three things must occur in order for an injury to be a workers’ compensation injury:

• the employee must experience an injury that "arises out of and in the course of their employment";
• the employee must notify their supervisor within 30 days of the injury; and
• the employee must either lose time from work and/or require medical attention.

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Weekly wage replacement (indemnity benefits), payment of all related medical bills including prescriptions, mileage reimbursements and related costs, payment for the cost of vocational rehabilitation, if necessary, and further benefits in severe cases, i.e., loss of specific body parts and fatality benefits. 

Weekly wage replacement must be paid if you miss more than 7 days of work. If you miss between 7 and 13 days, you will be paid for those days. If you miss more than 14 days, you will for all of the days that you have missed. However, you will not receive your full salary. Instead, you will receive 2/3 of your average weekly salary, meaning your average salary for the 52 weeks before the injury, capped at $687.48 per week.

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You must tell your employer that you were injured within 30 days of the injury. Your employer then has 7 days to file a First Report of Injury and give you a copy.

If your employer has selected a health care provider, you must go to your employer’s health care provider for the first 10 days of treatment. If you want to change health care providers after the first 10 days, you must tell your employer that you are going to do so, and tell them who the new health care provider is.

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The first step is to get in contact with a regional troubleshooter, a list of which can be found here. If a troubleshooter is unable to resolve a dispute, the claim is sent to mediation. If mediation fails, you may file a petition to request a formal hearing.

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