OSHA Injury and Illness Recordkeeper

Does your company keep records? What gets recorded?

Does your company have to keep records?

• If your company had more than 10 employees at any time during the last calendar year, it must keep records, unless your establishment is in a partially exempt industry listed in appendix A to subpart B.
• If it had 10 or fewer employees at all times last year, or is in a partially exempt industry, it does not need to keep the records unless the government asks it to keep records under 1904.41 or 1904.42 (for the small-employer exemption, OSHA or the Bureau of Labor Statistics informs it in writing).
• All employers covered by the OSH Act, exempt or not, must still report a work-related fatality, in-patient hospitalization, amputation or loss of an eye to OSHA.

The three-part test

A fatality, injury or illness is recorded when it is:

1. Work-related, and
2. A new case, and
3. Meets one or more of the recording criteria

Reference: 29 CFR 1904.0 · 29 CFR 1904.1(a)(1) · 29 CFR 1904.1(a)(2) · 29 CFR 1904.2(a)(1) · 29 CFR 1904.4(a)

Work-related, unless an exception applies

A case is work-related if an event or exposure in the work environment caused or contributed to it, or significantly aggravated a pre-existing injury or illness. When it happens in the work environment, work-relatedness is presumed unless one of the listed exceptions specifically applies.

The work environment is the establishment and other locations where employees are working or are present as a condition of their employment.

Some of the exceptions

Part 1904 lists a set of exceptions. For example, a case is not work-related when:

• It is solely the result of eating, drinking or preparing food or drink for personal consumption. But food contaminated by workplace contaminants, or food poisoning from food the employer supplied, is work-related.
• It is caused by a motor vehicle accident on a company parking lot or access road while the employee is commuting.
• The illness is the common cold or flu.

Check the full list in 1904.5(b)(2) before you decide a case is not work-related.

Reference: 29 CFR 1904.5(a) · 29 CFR 1904.5(b)(1) · 29 CFR 1904.5(b)(2) · 29 CFR 1904.5(b)(2)(iv) · 29 CFR 1904.5(b)(2)(vii) · 29 CFR 1904.5(b)(2)(viii)

Is it a new case?

A case is new if:

• The employee has not had a recorded injury or illness of the same type affecting the same part of the body, or
• They had one, recovered completely (all signs and symptoms gone), and an event or exposure at work brought the signs or symptoms back.

For occupational illnesses whose signs or symptoms can recur or continue without a new workplace exposure, record the case only once.

Reference: 29 CFR 1904.6(a) · 29 CFR 1904.6(b)(1)

The general recording criteria

A work-related new case is recordable if it results in any of these:

Specific cases

Some cases have their own rules. For example, you must record all work-related needlestick and cut from a sharp object contaminated with another person's blood or other potentially infectious material. Hearing loss, tuberculosis and medical removal cases also have their own sections in Part 1904.

Reference: 29 CFR 1904.7(a) · 29 CFR 1904.7(b)(6) · 29 CFR 1904.7(b)(7) · 29 CFR 1904.8(a)

First aid or medical treatment?

First aid alone does not make a case recordable. Part 1904 gives a complete list of what counts as first aid. Treatment that is not on the list is medical treatment, except visits solely for observation or counseling and diagnostic procedures (see below). Examples:

The rest of the first aid list: temporary immobilization devices while transporting an accident victim (such as splints, slings, neck collars or back boards); drilling a fingernail or toenail to relieve pressure, or draining fluid from a blister; eye patches; removing splinters or foreign material from areas other than the eye by irrigation, tweezers, cotton swabs or other simple means; finger guards; and drinking fluids for relief of heat stress.

Also not medical treatment

Visits solely for observation or counseling, and diagnostic procedures such as x-rays and blood tests.

Reference: 29 CFR 1904.7(b)(5)(i) · 29 CFR 1904.7(b)(5)(ii) · 29 CFR 1904.7(b)(5)(iii) · 29 CFR 1904.7(b)(5)(iv) · 29 CFR 1904.7(b)(5)(v)

Forms, deadline and privacy cases

Three forms

• OSHA 300: Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses
• OSHA 300-A: Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses
• OSHA 301: Injury and Illness Incident Report, one for each recordable case on the 300 Log

Equivalent forms are allowed.

Deadline

Enter each recordable case on the 300 Log and the 301 within 7 calendar days of receiving information that a recordable case occurred.

Whose cases

Record cases for employees on your payroll, and also for workers not on your payroll (such as temps) if you supervise them day to day.

Privacy concern cases

For these cases, write "privacy case" instead of the employee's name, and keep a separate, confidential list of case numbers and names:

• Injury or illness to an intimate body part or the reproductive system
• Injury or illness from a sexual assault
• Mental illnesses
• HIV infection, hepatitis, or tuberculosis
• Contaminated needlesticks and sharps cuts
• Other illnesses, if the employee voluntarily asks that their name not be entered

Reference: 29 CFR 1904.29(a) · 29 CFR 1904.29(b)(2) · 29 CFR 1904.29(b)(3) · 29 CFR 1904.29(b)(6) · 29 CFR 1904.29(b)(7) · 29 CFR 1904.31(a)

Counting days

Days away from work

• Start counting on the day after the injury occurred or the illness began.
• Count calendar days the employee was unable to work, whether or not they were scheduled to work those days. Weekends, holidays and other days off count if the employee would not have been able to work on them because of the injury or illness.
• You may cap the total at 180 calendar days.

Restricted work

Work is restricted when, because of the injury or illness, you keep the employee from one or more routine functions of their job or from working the full workday, or a physician or other licensed health care professional recommends that. Routine functions are work activities the employee regularly performs at least once per week.

You do not have to record a restriction or transfer imposed only for the day of the injury.

Reference: 29 CFR 1904.7(b)(3)(i) · 29 CFR 1904.7(b)(3)(iv) · 29 CFR 1904.7(b)(3)(vii) · 29 CFR 1904.7(b)(4)(i) · 29 CFR 1904.7(b)(4)(ii) · 29 CFR 1904.7(b)(4)(iii)

The annual summary and who sees the records

At the end of each calendar year

1. Review the 300 Log and correct anything incomplete or inaccurate.
2. Create the annual summary (300-A). Total the columns; if you had no recordable cases, enter zeros.
3. Certify it. A company executive must certify it.
4. Post it no later than February 1 and keep it posted until April 30.

Keep the records

Save the 300 Log, the privacy case list, the annual summary and the 301 forms for 5 years following the end of the calendar year they cover.

Employee reporting and access

• Your employer must have a reasonable procedure for employees to report injuries and illnesses promptly and accurately. A procedure that would deter or discourage a reasonable employee from reporting is not reasonable.
• Employees must not be discharged or discriminated against for reporting.
• When an employee, former employee, personal representative or authorized employee representative asks for the 300 Log for an establishment the employee worked in, give a copy by the end of the next business day.

Reference: 29 CFR 1904.32(a) · 29 CFR 1904.32(b)(2)(i) · 29 CFR 1904.32(b)(3) · 29 CFR 1904.32(b)(6) · 29 CFR 1904.33(a) · 29 CFR 1904.35(b)(1)(i) · 29 CFR 1904.35(b)(1)(iv) · 29 CFR 1904.35(b)(2)(iii)