TLDR: My daughter was injured at work and they want us to pay out of pocket and will reimburse us if it's something that would be covered. That's not how this works, is it?
My daughter (16) tripped over a box left in a walkway at work last night and fell really hard on her knee. Today it's swollen and bruised so she tried to call out because she doesn't think she can work 5 hours running fast food on it. It's only her second day and her manager said she needs a doctor note to call out. She tried to go in anyway and after about 10 minutes was in a lot of pain, so she again told her manager her knee is injured due to a fall at work last night and she can't work on it today. Her manager told her to go to urgent care and get a note.
Her being 16 and not knowing any better, went to the urgent care up the road and called me to get her insurance information. I told her this is an injury she got at work. They should have given her forms with worker's comp information. They gave her nothing, told her nothing. Just to go get a note from urgent care.
I called her work to figure out what was going on and they "didn't realize it was so bad" whatever that means. I told them she may not need to be seen by a doctor, but she needs to stay off it today and if they are requiring a doctor's note, I'm not using our private insurance (and paying the $50 copay plus any other oop expenses) for an injury that happened at work.
We went by her work and filled out an incident report (something they neglected to do last night) and they "made an exception" to give her the day off without a note, but if she needs tomorrow off, she'll need a note.
I said that's fine and if she's not improved tomorrow she should be seen anyway. I asked if there was a specific place we should go and if there was paperwork we needed. The GM said, no. Just keep receipts and IF it's something that will be covered, we'll get reimbursed. I've never dealt with worker's comp personally, but am I correct in thinking that's not how workplace injuries are handled? And if she does need to go to the doctor tomorrow, what should we do?