Workers Compensation General Information:
Law's have changed recently that have thrown the field of Workers compensation into turmoil at all levels.
An Injured worker seeks medical attention and files a claim with employer
Generally speaking, your employer has control of the injured workers medical treatment according to the new changes in the law for in some cases for the entire claims process. This was a major change in the old law that allowed the injured worker to select another treating doctor after the first 30 days following an injury. You may still be allowed to apply for a change of treating doctors but you will have to choose from the panel of acceptable doctors provided to you by your employer, the MPN as it is now called. It is still too soon to see how all this will work out.
One of the major improvements for injured workers under the new law is that employers must provide medical treatment immediately up to a $10,000 limit before the claim is denied for cause. In the past the employer could have up to 90 days to deny of accept the claim and in the meantime the injured worker may not be able to obtain treatment.
While you are temporarily totally disabled (TTD) you will be paid 2/3 of your weekly earnings up to statutory set maximums that are currently in the $700 per week range.
Until you are declared permanent and stationary by your primary treating physician you will receive TTD payments. When you are found to be permanent & stationary your T.D. will stop and your level of permanent disability will be evaluated based upon the report issued by your treating physician.
The simple answer is no... but.... generally having an attorney will get you substantially higher award from the insurance company then you would ever get without one. Other then the greater amount of money you will receive the attorney takes care of all the problems that may occur during the life of a workers compensation claim.
Your attorney gets a rather small percentage of the permanent disability award. The amount of the attorney fee generally will never exceed 15% and has to be approved by the judge. If you receive no money because you made a full recovery with no residual disability, you owe your attorney nothing... at our office.. no recovery, no attorney fee.
If your doctor declares you to be a Qualified Injured worker (QIW) and that you are medically eligible for vocational rehabilitation, your employer may have to provide you with modified work or provide you with an educational voucher to be used for retraining.
New financial incentives for creating modified work and jobs for injured workers may severely alter the Vocational Rehabilitation benefits that are currently offered.
If your injury is such that you can do the esential functions of your job with some slight modifications and your employer wants to accomodate your disability then you may not get vocational rehabilitation. remember that any job your employer provides you after your return to work must be for a one year period or they may have to provide you with Vocational rehabilitation training at a cost to the employer of up to the current cap amount.
If you are eligible for v.R. you may be assigned a counselor, depending on the date of your injury, who will work with you to determine what career would be best suitable for your particular case. Former training and education is taken into account in trying to maximize existing job skills and help insure your chances of success.
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If you or someone you know has suffered a work related injury and are too afraid to report it for fear that they will be fired, please remember that it is illegal to discriminate against an injured worker and to threaten adverse employment action against that individual is in violation of California labor code section 132a.
