Workers Compensation

The University of Kansas provides workers’ compensation coverage to all employees, including student employees and part-time employees. Under the Kansas Workers Compensation Act, if an employee is injured or becomes sick due to work, that employee may be eligible, as determined by the State Self Insurance Fund, to receive medical coverage and compensation for lost wages subject to a weekly maximum.

Covered Incidents

Only injuries that have occurred out of and/or in the course of employment activities and not caused by misconduct may be compensable by the State Self Insurance/Workers’ Compensation program. Keep in mind that remote workers may sustain an injury in the course of their work in their remote location (e.g. working from home). Such injuries (whether on campus or in your designated work location) must be reported following the process as follows.

Seeking Medical Attention

If the injured employee wants to seek medical treatment, the injured employee's supervisor and/or the injured employee and the supervisor should contact the State Self Insurance Fund (SSIF) 24/7 Nurse Triage Program at 1-833-756-2007 to receive care instruction and/or authorization prior to seeking any medical treatment.  If authorization from SSIF is received, the injured employee should follow SSIF's directions on where to schedule the appointment.  Employees are not required to seek medical treatment following the report of an injury or illness.  The injured employee should understand that without the prior authorization from SSIF to seek treatment, if the injury is determined to not be compensable by worker's compensation, the employee will be responsible for associated out of pocket expenses.

The employee will need to determine at the time of the injury, based on the severity of the injury, if the employee should go to the emergency room or call the Nurse Triage Program as detailed above.  Regardless of whether an employee seeks medical treatment, the employee must report the injury to the employee's supervisor. 

If the nature of the employee's injury is serious or life threatening, the employee should proceed directly to the Lawrence Memorial Hospital Emergency Room, or the nearest emergency room, and notify the health care provider that the injury was work related. Please keep in mind that if the injury is not deemed to be work-related, by the State Self Insurance Fund, the employee will be responsible for any costs not covered by the employee's health insurance plan for the emergency room visit. Additionally, injuries that did not result from or occur in the course of employment activities may not be covered by workers’ compensation.

The injured employee must provide the supervisor with any medical information, related to the work injury, provided by the employee's healthcare provider.

If the injured employee is prescribed medication, the employee must download and present the Injured Worker’s First Fill Prescription Form to the employee's pharmacy when dropping off the prescription.

Reporting an Incident

If an employee is injured in the course of employment activities, the injured employee is to report the incident to the employee's supervisor or Human Resources (if the supervisor/manager is unavailable) within 24 hours. Failure of the injured employee to report an accident to the supervisor within 10 days of the incident may invalidate any subsequent claim for workers’ compensation.

Managers and Supervisors

Departments/supervisors are obligated, whenever they become aware of an injury sustained by an employee in the course of employment activities, or whenever an employee reports an injury that occurred the course of their work, to fully complete the report of workplace injury/illness form. The form should be submitted to Human Resources within 48 hours of the incident by completing all required fields and clicking “submit” at the bottom of the above linked web form. Once the above linked web form is submitted, Human Resources will proceed with reporting the injury to State Self Insurance Fund. If the employee or supervisor would like a copy of the online web form submission, contact HR (hrdept@ku.edu or 785-864-4946).

Employees

The state requires the employee to fully complete form WC-9: Injured Employee's Report of Injury (pdf). This form can be completed after the employee’s department submits the report of injury/illness web form (described above). The WC-9 form should be submitted directly to the State Self-Insurance Fund office by fax at 785-296-6995 or by mail:

State Self-Insurance Fund

Mills Building, Suite 600

109 SW 9th St.

Topeka, KS  66612

Submitting Medical Bills

An injured employee SHOULD NOT submit medical bills to Human Resources as this will delay processing. Instead, bills should be mailed directly to:

CompAlliance SSIF

PO Box 1697

Topeka, KS 66601-1697

Additional Information

For more information on workers’ compensation benefits, lost time compensation, and how to file for workers’ compensation, please refer to the Workers’ Compensation Policy. To learn more about the state’s workers compensation program please visit State Self Insurance Fund.

*An accessible version of the documents on this site will be made available upon request. Please contact our office at hrdept@ku.edu to request the document be made available in an accessible format.