I recently cut my hand pretty badly on broken glass while at work. I told my manager about it and she assured me that I was fine. Trusting her opinion, I cleaned the wound up and continued on with the day. After a month, the now seemingly healed injury was still causing me a great deal of pain. I went to an urgent care and they informed me that there was glass in my hand and I needed surgery in order to remove it.
I went back to my manager and told her of the situation. She told me to move forward with the surgery but she wanted to pay for it out of pocket and not through the business's insurance. Not knowing this would be an issue, I agreed.
When I went in for my surgery, the nurse asked about what had happened with my hand. I told her the story of how I cut my hand at glass at work but did not get it checked so I had no idea there was a piece of glass still in it. She looked down at my paperwork, looked up at me and asked, "This happened at work? You should be using Workman's Comp. It says here you don't have insurance and will be paying out of pocket. You are committing insurance fraud!" She rescheduled my appointment.
I was mortified! The hospital is thinking about pressing charges. Am I liable for fraud if I had no idea that was what was happening?
