The Limbo Stage: 21 Days to Accept or Deny

Once you have given notice of your injury to your employer, their insurance carrier has 21 days under the Workers' Compensation Act to either accept or deny your claim for benefits. During this period of time, you are basically in limbo.

To accept the claim, the insurance carrier needs to file either one of two notices with the Bureau in Harrisburg. The first notice is a notice of temporary compensation payable. As the name implies, this notice temporarily accepts the claim for a period of 90 days to give the insurance carrier additional time to investigate your claim before making its final determination.

Prior to the end of the 90-day period, if the insurance carrier wishes to deny your benefits, they are required to file notice stopping temporary compensation. If the insurance carrier does not file the notice stopping the temporary benefits in the allotted time, the temporary notice will be automatically converted to a notice of compensation payable.

To accept the claim with no future investigation, the insurance carrier is required to file a notice of compensation payable. Both of these documents must list the accepted injury and also provide you with the name, address, telephone number and claim number from the insurance carrier.

It is also important to keep these documents in a safe and convenient place. These documents are the official documents accepting your claim for benefits.

To deny the claim, the insurance carrier needs to file a notice of denial with Harrisburg. On this notice, they are required to list their reason for the denial by checking one or more of five general reasons or completing number 6 including their own written reason. If you receive a notice of denial and want to pursue a claim for your injury, at that point you will need an experienced workers compensation attorney to file a claim petition on your behalf and start the litigation process.