Hey all. Not sure if this is the best place to post but we're feeling stuck and figured you could at least point us in the right direction.
June 24th was my lovely lady's last shift at the restaurant she served at for two years. She was bringing dirty dishes down the main staircase and tripped, twisting her ankle. Management told her to rest and ice; after 20 minutes she returned to work (of her own volition) because she didn't think it was hurt badly. She worked on it for 4 hours that night. When she got home she found it was much more swollen than she had realized.
Over the course of the next two weeks we monitored her ankle and had it checked by a couple friends in the healthcare sector. It was certainly healing, but taking its time. Because she was working on her feet for her second job, she was worried it wasn't healing properly or perhaps she had suffered worse than a sprain. So finally, last night (Jul 9) she went to the ER. I told her she should do a doctor's appointment instead but she wasn't going to be able to get in until late this week, and was concerned about waiting longer. After all, multiple managers had assured her the company/owners would cover her hospital trip. To be clear, the managers are awesome but have no control over company insurance.
While at the hospital, my gf was informed that the restaurant declined to bill to their own insurance so it would be sent to my gf's insurance instead. She emailed corporate/owners, and they responded that “since you denied hospitalization on the night of the injury, and multiple weeks have passed, you would not qualify for a worker's compensation through our insurance.”
She was never asked by anyone in corporate if she needed medical follow-up, or that there was a time limit to when they could compensate with company insurance. Is this BS?? We live in Michigan. To my understanding, workers comp claims are legitimate for a year or longer.
TL;DR: Gf injured at work; management claimed company will cover medical costs – but then the family that owns the restaurant personally rejected the request on basis of her waiting to long to go to the doctor. We can't really afford it ourselves. What do we do?