A reportable incident is a work-related event that an employer must report directly to a regulator within a set deadline, such as a fatality, inpatient hospitalization, amputation or loss of an eye under OSHA rules.
A reportable incident is a work-related event that an employer must report directly to a government regulator within a set time. In the United States, OSHA's severe injury reporting rule, 29 CFR 1904.39, requires employers to report every work-related fatality, every inpatient hospitalization, every amputation and every loss of an eye.
Reportable is different from recordable. A recordable incident is entered on the employer's own OSHA 300 Log. A reportable incident must also be reported to OSHA right away, by phone, in person or online. Most reportable incidents are also recordable.
Other regulators have their own reporting rules, including the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) for mines and the UK's RIDDOR regulations. Outside the US, these events are often called notifiable incidents.
If the employer does not learn about the event right away, the deadline starts when the employer or any of its agents learns that a reportable event occurred.
Voicemail, fax and email to the Area Office do not count. The report must include the establishment name, the location and time of the incident, the type of event, the number of employees affected and their names, a contact person and phone number, and a brief description of what happened.
Fatalities and hospitalizations caused by a heart attack at work must be reported. OSHA's Area Office director decides whether to investigate. Events that are not reportable may still need to be recorded on the OSHA 300 Log.
States that run their own OSHA State Plans must have reporting rules at least as effective as federal OSHA, and some have shorter deadlines or broader definitions. Employers in State Plan states should check their state's rules.
Under 30 CFR 50.10, mine operators must notify MSHA at once without delay and within 15 minutes of when they know or should know of certain accidents, including a death, an injury or entrapment that has a reasonable potential to cause death, and other listed accidents.
Under RIDDOR, deaths, specified injuries and dangerous occurrences must be notified to the enforcing authority without delay and reported within 10 days. Injuries that keep a worker off normal duties for more than seven consecutive days must be reported within 15 days of the incident.
For workers who are alone or in remote locations, delays in learning about an incident can make deadlines harder to meet. Check-in procedures or lone worker monitoring can help supervisors learn about serious events sooner.
On a Saturday night, a maintenance technician at a bottling plant caught his hand in a conveyor and lost the tip of his index finger. He was treated at an emergency room and sent home without being admitted.
The night supervisor reported the injury to the plant manager through the company's on-call process. Although the worker was not hospitalized, the fingertip loss counted as an amputation under 29 CFR 1904.39. The plant manager reported it using OSHA's online form within 24 hours, entered the case on the OSHA 300 Log, and started an investigation into why the conveyor guard had been removed.
A recordable incident must be entered on the employer's OSHA 300 Log. A reportable incident must be reported to OSHA within 8 or 24 hours. A severe injury is usually both.
Only if the employee was formally admitted as an inpatient for care or treatment within 24 hours of the incident. Emergency room treatment or observation without admission is not reportable, unless it involves an amputation or loss of an eye.
Yes. OSHA counts fingertip amputations, with or without bone loss, as amputations that must be reported within 24 hours.
Yes. Employers that are exempt from keeping OSHA injury records because of their size or industry still must report fatalities, inpatient hospitalizations, amputations and losses of an eye.
OSHA can issue a citation and penalty for failing to report on time. A late report may also delay an investigation and the chance to correct the hazard.
Part of SafetyIQ's EHS glossary: plain-English definitions of workplace health and safety terms.
> Keep learning
> See it in action
Capture hazards, run inspections, track training and close out corrective actions in one platform built for high-risk, field-heavy work.
Book my free demo
Get a demo built around your sites, your teams, and the way your people work.
EHS, journey, and fatigue management software for field-heavy teams.
.png){kind=logo}
.png)