How Do I Know if I Have a Claim?
You are eligible to file a workers’ compensation claim if the injury happened at your workplace while you were working.
If you got injured at work, you should file a workers’ compensation claim, and you should do it sooner rather than later. Filing a workers’ compensation claim is a legally protected activity, and it is against the law for your employer to retaliate against you for it by reducing your pay, changing your work schedule against your wishes, or otherwise taking an adverse action against you. Whether your employer’s workers’ compensation insurance will pay for all the treatment you think you need and the other benefits you are requesting is another matter. In the short term, you should file the claim before there is room for any ambiguity to arise about how and when the injury happened. Once you have filed the claim and started receiving treatment, you can work out the details with an Omaha workers’ compensation lawyer.
What Counts as a Work Injury?
Workers’ compensation laws require employers to carry insurance that pays for treatment of injuries that employees sustain in the workplace during their shifts. In the case of severe injuries, workers’ comp benefits may also cover temporary or permanent disability pay, where the insurance pays you a portion of your wages or salary during the time that you are unable to work because of your injury. It may also pay for vocational rehabilitation and job placement services if your injury makes you permanently unable to return to your previous job; these benefits help you train for a new job that you can perform in your current state of health.
Workers’ compensation benefits also cover occupational diseases, defined as chronic diseases for which your occupation poses an inherent risk. For example, some types of cancers count as occupational diseases for firefighters, because even with proper safety equipment, firefighters have more exposure than the general public does to carcinogenic fire-extinguishing chemicals.
Workers’ Compensation Eligibility Gray Areas
If you have a pre-existing medical condition that the work injury aggravated, your employer may dispute the extent to which your current symptoms are the result of the work injury. Likewise, there is sometimes room for disagreement about whether an injury happened at work. If you were on the premises of your workplace but on a break, your injury is still compensable. Workers’ compensation judges have also ruled in favor of claimants injured in accidental falls while walking to or from the worksite immediately before or after the shift, and so did a flight attendant who tripped and fell in the aisle of an airplane while flying to her base airport to report for a work assignment. A woman who tripped and fell in her kitchen while working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic also got her workers’ compensation claim approved.
Contact Andres Law Offices, PC LLO About Workers’ Compensation Disputes in Nebraska
An Omaha workers’ compensation lawyer can help you if you suffered an accidental injury at work or while coming or going from your workplace. Contact Andres Law Offices, PC LLO in Omaha, Nebraska about your case.