Beginning January 1, 2015, employers will need to comply with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) new requirements for reporting employee fatalities and severe injuries. The new rule requires employers to report to OSHA all work-related fatalities within 8 hours and all work-related hospitalizations of one or more employees, amputations, and losses of an eye within 24 hours. (The current OSHA rule only requires employers to report work-related fatalities and hospitalizations of three or more employees.)

Employers must report any fatality that occurs within 30 days of a work-related incident. For example, this means that if an employee is seriously injured while on duty but does not pass away from his injuries until three weeks later, the employer must report the incident as a work-related fatality.

Employers must report all in-patient hospitalizations, amputations, and losses of eye that occur with 24 hours of a work-related incident. Inpatient hospitalization is defined as a formal admission to the inpatient service of a hospital or clinic for care or treatment. Notably, employers do not have to report an inpatient hospitalization if it was for diagnostic testing or observation only. Two other notable exceptions include injuries resulting from motor vehicle accidents on a public street or highway (unless the event occurred in a construction zone) and injuries on a commercial or public transportation system.

The new rule covers all employers under OSHA’s jurisdiction, even those employers who are exempt from routinely keeping OSHA injury and illness records due to company size or industry. Employers can report employee fatalities and severe injuries by telephoning the nearest OSHA Area Office during business hours, calling the OSHA 24-hour hotline at 1-800-321-OSHA, or accessing OSHA’s website at www.osha.gov.

By Nathan Pangrace of Roetzel