Your employees play a major role in your company’s financial success. Both the work that they perform and their workers’ comp claims can have major consequences on business finances.
Claims by your employees could be a major financial loss for your company. Having a policy that requires drug or alcohol testing after a workplace accident could potentially save your company thousands of dollars.
Why drug tests help employers
Workers who drink every day or who have used certain drugs for years may know how to cover the telltale signs of their chemical impairment. You can’t always tell from talking to them that they are under the influence.
When you have a worker take a drug test after a work accident and they fail it, you may then be able to build a case to deny their workers’ compensation claim. If you can convincingly claim that their chemical impairment on the job was the direct cause of their injury, then that failed drug test could give you grounds to deny them benefits because their behavior directly cause their injury.
Certain issues may complicate a drug test defense to a workers’ compensation claim. The injured worker’s medical history, for example, could provide a reasonable explanation for the presence of certain chemicals in their bloodstream.
Still, instituting a company-wide policy can help ensure that a worker who fails a test can’t later claim that you engaged in selective enforcement or targeted them on purpose. Learning about different defense options can help you minimize the cost of a workers’ compensation claim.
