Is Workers' Compensation All You Need?
Being injured on the job can be a frightening thing for both your immediate health and your financial future. Many job site dangers have the potential to ruin your ability to earn for life, which may require you to move beyond workers' comp. As you assess your damages and financial situation, consider a few factors that could change the way you view your workers' comp claim and moving forward with injury claims.
How Will You Return To Work?
Workers' compensation covers medical bills and lost wages for eligible injuries on the job. You typically need to be disabled to the point of being unable to work for a partial wage compensation, but you need to think beyond basic recovery.
Even if you're able to move on your own and return to work, you'll need to evaluate whether your working ability is the same. Are you working at the same capacity as before? Are pains, clouded thought, physical stiffness or emotional distraction caused by the injury stopping you from working as well as you can? These questions need to be understood deeply before signing any responsibility-releasing paperwork.
Workers' compensation does assist the injured worker with rehabilitation, but the longer you wait to assess the bigger damages on your life, the harder it will be to pursue other methods of compensation. If you believe you're owed more compensation from your company or an individual responsible for the damages, you may want to pursue a personal injury claim or other legal action.
Do You Need More Than Basic Rehabilitation?
The rehabilitation benefits offered by workers' compensation can help you retrain for your old job with injuries in mind or train for a new job, but the benefits aren't guaranteed. You may run into funding issues with the compensation system or a disagreement in injury severity.
If you're unable to return to work and doubt your ability to compete as the years go by because of your injuries, you may want to talk to a team of workers' comp lawyers about escalating your claim to a personal injury negotiation. Especially in cases where injuries are caused by company neglect or another worker's improper actions, it may be better to demand some compensation at a personal level.
From there, you can demand benefits such as targeted job training for different industries or even a specific company. If you want to raise your opportunities without going into debt, negotiate for a college education. Even if you have a degree already, studying in a different field can open up another level of acceptable and impressive pay.
You can work out terms such as school quality or even how to reduce costs of your legal opponent by suggesting the hiring of scholarship and grant professionals to find the education opportunities for you. Such offers can be a lower bill to your company, as a grant writer's fees are generally lower than the full cost of school in many places.
Contact a team of workers' comp lawyers at http://www.nccompspecialist.com/ to begin planning your next phase after injury.