Safety Knights

Fractured teeth, when work-related, are always an OSHA recordable, regardless of any treatment administered for the injury. In this case, the deciding factor would be "Is it work-related?". Since they stated they were clenching their jaw (resulting in the fractured tooth) due to work-related anxiety from interpersonal issues at work, then, unless you can prove otherwise, it's work-related and is, therefore, a recordable.

Definitely a wild one, for sure!

Alyssa, I'd reach out to the WNY OSHA Compliance Assistance Specialist (I'm not sure who took over for Nick Donofrio who just retired). I discussed many of these type of scenarios with Nick's predecessor. If you need help finding that person, I'm certain I can find someone who knows.

Wow, just wow

In our business I always thought it would be great if most decisions I had to make were black or white. Alas, this is one of those big grey ones. I read over Drew's explanation and agree 100% with what he said. In my present situation as a consultant I like Mick's suggestion of calling an OSHA CHSO. (They call themselves "co-shows", the first time I ever heard the term I had called the Appleton OSHA Office for a question for a customer and the gal I talked said she was a "CO-SHOW." This was 3 years ago).

However, back in the day I was a site manager in a huge multi-national corporation. My title was a Human Resources Manager but had I H&S responsibility too in this large machine shop of 400 employees (for a several years I had H&S for the entire division of 10 plants too) . Being a HR Manager I also had WC (self-insured) responsibility too. My corporation evaluated all its employees based on plant performance and individual achievement. One of the metrics was our TIR which had to be 1.0 or less or "momma got no new shoes!" That meant for 400 employees we could not have more than 4 recordables, and this was a machine shop! If we exceeded 4 recordables no one got a raise! I got very good at closely examining and in many cases challenging recordables.

Unless the case was clear cut, I would not automatically accept the case. This is case is very grey. I would NOT call OSHA because I might not like their answer! In this case it is so grey I would look for ways to not call it a recordable. I see this logic taking place in my thought process. The word "anxiety" jumps off the page for me. In my 50 years in the business psychological problems are extremely controversial as to work-place causation. I for sure never accepted something as a recordable until I had a doctor slip in hand by an MD or equivalent. (I rarely ever just accepted a DC's opinion without an IME from an MD too). The slip had to say why the injury or illness was work-related and why. I think even an MD would have a tough time tying a anxiety case to broken teeth. I would like to see that.

Without a MD slip I would not accept as a recordable until I did. If the slip came from a DDS I would have a problem. OSHA might consider a DDS a Medical person but in my state only a MD, DO, DC, or DPM can make the judgement of something as being compensable. Simply put a DDS cannot call something as WC in my state (Wisconsin). I know OSHA is OSHA and WC is WC but the employee is most concerned with who is paying the bills and does not really care if we call it a recordable. We had dental insurance so I would have no problem explaining to the employee to turn the claim into the dental insurance company with only a DDS slip as that is the law in our state. Without a MD slip and only the DDS I might forget to enter the case in the OSHA Log. The chances are the only way OSHA would catch it is if the employee called OSHA which in this case is highly unlikely. If OSHA should somehow catch it this case is so grey I also doubt they would call it serious and would most likely be de minimis at worse. Is this unethical? In my opinion grey at most, and since momma needs new shoes, I got do.....

If I did get a MD slip that said the broken teeth were caused by anxiety I would pencil the case in as a recordable but immediately schedule the employee for an IME. I think on this one I doubt two MDs would ever have the same answer. It would be easy to find an MD to counter the employee's MD. I would make sure my MD had better credentials to make such a call. With the counter opinion I would erase the recordable.

Bottom line today the case is not a recordable as I do not have slip (medical evidence) from a medical person! If the slip comes in we will have to see who wrote it and why, then we'll go from there. In the long run this has a 80% chance of being non-recordable, especially if you will pay the +$3,000 for an IME. My corporation would gladly pay that to remove a recordable from the Log as every one counts!

I agree with Drew's explanation. I've also had fun using perplexity.ai to answer OSHA recordable questions, I prompt it to use OSHA's recordability standards and it always shows the work that leads to the answer. I do also agree with others that this one is bizarre... when they mentioned that they went to the dentist, I suspected that maybe something happened at the dentist that they don't want to cover out of their pocket... could just be me being cynical.

I agree with Tom's assessment of the situation.
FYI
1904.5(b)(2)(ix)
The illness is a mental illness. Mental illness will not be considered work-related unless the employee voluntarily provides the employer with an opinion from a physician or other licensed health care professional with appropriate training and experience (psychiatrist, psychologist, psychiatric nurse practitioner, etc.) stating that the employee has a mental illness that is work-related.

A scaffold builder chipped his teeth with a scaffold pin while passing material to build a scaffold.
From that experience I know that is a recordable.