Injury Reporting & Workers' Compensation

Employees, please review the Employee Injury Reporting and Workers' Comp Procedures for Employees (disponible en Español).

Supervisors, please review the Employee Injury Reporting and Workers' Comp Procedures for Supervisors.

Non-employees, please email risk@du.edu and tell us what happened.

All employee injuries are required to be reported to ERM within 24 hours. If the employee does not think they are going to see a doctor, they should indicate that on the Employee Report of Injury form. If the employee decides to seek treatment at a later date, the employee or the supervisor must notify ERM at risk@du.edu and they will make sure the claim is reported.

Employees should not transport other injured employees.

For the first appointment after injury, for serious or life-threatening injuries, please call 911. Otherwise, if an employee cannot transport themselves to the WC clinic for the first appointment, they should take a rideshare and save all receipts to submit to DU's workers' compensation insurance company, Pinnacol. 

If an employee needs ongoing transportation to the rest of their medical appointments, they should contact ERM at risk@du.edu.

Please see the current DU Human Resources & Inclusive Community policy and the "Use and Consumption of Alcohol" and/or "Possession, Use, or Distribution of Controlled Substances" policies on DU's policy website.

The process of examining every factor of an incident in detail to determine the root cause(s). Root causes are contributing factors/events (acts and conditions) that may cause incidents.

• To prevent future incidents.
• To provide a safe environment for students, employees, and visitors.
• To reduce employee's lost time due to injuries.
• To document any observations close in time to when the injury occurred.

Reporting an injury is required, seeking treatment is optional. However, if an employee wants to pursue a workers' compensation claim, they must seek treatment at a doctor listed on the Workers' Compensation Medical Providers list or insurance will not accept the claim.

No. If a non-employee is injured, they can decide if they want to or need to seek medical treatment. 

Consider:

• What are the causes of the incident (e.g. equipment, environment, people/behavior, materials)?
• Why did the incident occur according to the FACTS?
• Does this employee need re-training? If so, what kind?
• What could have been done to prevent the incident?
• Was the incident caused by any unsafe acts or conditions?
• What action is recommended to prevent recurrence?

When evaluating, keep asking why and dig deep. For example, if an employee falls on the stairs, why did it happen? Were the stairs wet, damaged, lighting was poor, etc.

All employee injuries should be reported to ERM. If the injury does not appear to be industrial in nature (work-related), it is not up to the supervisor or ERM to determine compensability. A claim should be submitted and DU's WC insurance will determine if the claim will be accepted.

No, employees should only be paid for the hours actually worked. If the employee misses work, please document it in PioneerTime (following the instructions in the Employee Injury Reporting and Workers' Comp Procedures for Supervisors). Depending on how much time an employee misses due to their injury, they may be eligible for lost time benefits which is paid by WC insurance.

DU has designated medical providers listed on the Workers' Compensation Medical Providers list (available in Spanish).

If an injured employee wishes to change medical providers, they must reach out to their workers' compensation insurance claims agent to discuss the procedure they need to complete. In Colorado, an employee has the right to make a one-time change to a new medical provider (also from the Workers' Compensation Medical Providers list) by following the procedure within 90 days of the injury, but before they reach maximum medical improvement (MMI). Please also see the 

For more information, please visit Colorado's Injured Workers website.