Workers’ Compensation Update for Missouri

Missouri’s Workers’ Compensation notice has undergone revisions that include new requirements for both employees and employers. The notice has a revision date of 7/19.

Changes to Workers’ Compensation

New Requirements for Employees

The initial steps employees in the Show-Me State are required to take after being injured on the job have been revised.

Employees must provide written notice to employers within 30 days of an “accident,” or 30 days “after the diagnosis of any occupational disease or repetitive trauma.”

In addition, employees must now ask their employer to provide medical treatment. Previously, the Workers’ Compensation notice stated that employees should “seek medical treatment,” which may have been confusing to employees.

New Requirements for Employers

An employer or an insurer is required to provide medical treatment and care that is now described as “reasonably required” following an employee’s workplace injury. Plus, the employer or insurer must pay the employee’s medical bills related to this reasonably required treatment and care.

In relation to employer fraud, employers may not knowingly misrepresent an employee’s job classification, “or any other fact,” to get the insurance that is less than the proper rate.

Updated Info on Survivors’ Benefits

The previous Workers’ Compensation notice stated that weekly death benefits might be paid to surviving dependents “if an employee dies on the job.” The Division of Workers’ Compensation has amended this statement, as follows, to apply specifically to an on-the-job incident: “If a work-related injury causes an employee’s death, the surviving dependents may receive weekly death benefits.”

New Feature for Employees

For more information related to workers’ comp benefits, employees can scan the new QR Code at the bottom of the notice, which will take them to the Division of Workers’ Compensation website. Instructions have been provided for those who may have trouble with the QR Code.

We Make Compliance Easy!

If you have not already done so, we encourage you to order our 1-Year Compliance Plan, so that you will automatically receive the updated Missouri poster as soon as it is available. And because we provide free poster updates for mandatory changes, no matter how many occur during the plan year, you can always count on Poster Compliance Center to keep your business in compliance.