You May Deserve More Than Basic Workers Compensation
The workers compensation is designed to help injured workers recover and return to work without major financial hardship. For the worst injuries, it covers medical procedures that are extremely expensive in the American health market. For lesser injuries, it could mean a few days with a limp or taking it easy while otherwise enjoying a paid vacation. There are many specific situations and prohibiting exceptions between those two extremes, and some legal or financial situations can be worse than the injuries. Before accepting the standard compensation decision, here are a few things to consider.
Are The Payments Enough?
Workers compensation is different for each state, but the general premise is the same across the US. Your medical bills relevant to the injury are paid for by workers compensation insurance, and you're paid a percentage of your normal paycheck through a formula, such as California's compensation pay calculation.
For some people, a percentage change isn't a big deal. If they're already making a decent amount of money for their needs, it either makes no difference as they focus on recovery or its a great, slightly lower paid vacation as mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, if you're barely making ends meet or not doing well in the economy at all, any kind of pay cut can lead to an emergency.
Some workers assume that they have to either accept what they're given or go through a lengthy legal battle to get better treatment, and that's just not true. Every state has provisions for increasing compensation payments, and the easiest way to do this involves proving that you're going through a hardship.
It isn't exactly easy to find in some cases, and although you should get a lawyer to double check your options. There are a lot of other provisions for injured workers, since every situation is truly different. You don't have to do much aside from provide information when asked, since the lawyer will be performing the research. If you want the information as well, just ask for documentation after the lawyer has time to make significant progress.
Extended Benefits And Starting Fresh
Not all workers compensation claims end with a worker's recovery. If you've been permanently disabled by an injury and your benefits are up, or if there is any indication of future disability, it's time for a lawyer to begin activating contingency plans.
Following a disabling injury, workers have a few choices. They can be routed to social security disability if the injury can lead to recovery that is just longer than workers compensation is designed to handle, or pursue other legal options.
Other legal options involve investigating the situations to figure out who is at fault. You may need to seek personal injury compensation from your employer, a coworker, or even a vendor outside of the company. If you were injured by work equipment or safety equipment and neither you or your company can be held liable, a more complex set of research needs to be done.
It's more work, but that work is for the lawyer, not you. Yes, it takes time, but the alternative is usually suffering because of an issue you didn't cause and paying for it out of pocket. To make sure the people responsible for your injury are paying--or to figure out if other programs can help you easier, contact a workers compensation attorney, like http://www.dlplawyers.com.