Radnor Workers’ Comp Lawyer
Workers’ Compensation benefits are supposed to be available for injured workers, allowing them to get compensation for their injuries after a work accident. These benefits provide medical expenses as well as lost earning capacity benefits, along with other damages for the injured victim and their family. However, insurance carriers often get in the way of you getting the benefits you deserve.
Our attorneys can help you negotiate with the insurance carrier and take your case to court, where a petition for benefits can be filed directly with the judge. Many of the processes are difficult to follow even for seasoned lawyers who have no experience with the Workers’ Comp system, which is why our attorneys are specialized in this area of the law.
For a free evaluation of your case, call Cardamone Law’s Certified Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Specialists today at (267) 651-7945.
Compensation Available for Injured Workers Through Workers’ Comp in Radnor
Workers in and around Radnor and throughout the Main Line, should typically be covered under Workers’ Comp. As long as you are not properly classified as an independent contractor, your status as an “employee” should be enough to get you coverage for work-related injuries that impair your ability to work. Typically, this pays benefits to the worker in two areas, along with a third potential area of benefits for workers and death benefits paid to the family of a worker killed in an accident.
Wage-Loss/Indemnity Benefits
If your injury is serious enough that it keeps you out of work for more than 7 days, you will typically be entitled to benefits to cover your lost wages. Our Workers’ Compensation lawyers can help you calculate the benefits you should be entitled to, but the typical worker is paid 2/3 of their average wages before the accident. If you are able to return to work and get a reduced paycheck, then the benefits are 2/3 of the difference between old and new wages instead.
In some cases, workers making under certain thresholds will make more than 2/3 of their wage as benefits, depending on how their wage stacks up to the statewide average. At a minimum, you can receive 50% of that statewide average or 90% of your weekly wage, whichever is less. For maximum caps, you cannot receive more than the statewide average weekly wage.
The statewide average is set annually, with the 2024 limit being $1,273 per week.
Medical Benefits
Along with this, medical costs should be covered for any treatment needed for your work injury. This includes all kinds of payments, from medication costs to hospital stays to rehab and PT. These costs should also be covered for emergency care to treat the immediate effects of the injury, as well as any ongoing care you will need in the months and years after the initial injury.
Because these payments could be needed for quite some time, it is often best to review any settlement offers with your attorney. If you settle for a lump sum, the ongoing medical benefits go away and would instead be paid out of your settlement. That means if your injury is projected to get worse over time and your medical care costs are projected to go up, you could miss out on getting those covered if you settle too early for too low of a value.
While you receive medical care for the first 90 days, your employer’s insurance carrier can often require you to use a doctor on their approved list, but after that, you get to use a care provider of your choice in most cases.
Specific Loss Benefits
If you have certain types of permanent injuries, you can often get additional benefits paid for a number of weeks set by statute for each injury. There is a list of injuries in the Workers’ Comp Act that says how much each injury costs.
These benefits are typically paid for amputations and lost function in body parts, as well as significant facial scarring and lost hearing/vision.
Death Benefits
The family of a worker killed in a work-related accident can often get ongoing benefits to replace that worker’s lost wages. These benefits change depending on whether the worker was married and how many children they supported at the time of their passing.
Coverage For Work-Related Injuries Under Workers’ Comp in Radnor, PA
No matter what kind of job you do as an “employee,” you should be covered by Workers’ Compensation. Employers with at least one employee who could need benefits are supposed to have insurance, although they do not need to cover independent contractors. So long as your injury was not intentionally self-inflicted or caused by your drug use or drunkenness at work, the main qualification to get benefits is that the injury must be “work-related.”
This is a relatively low bar, and any injuries that occur while carrying out work tasks or being at work should be covered under this system. That means that slip and falls in your office or electrocution while plugging in your computer should be covered as much as burns while working in a kitchen or a crash while driving a bus.
Many workers do not work at a particular job site every day, but as long as your injury was during your job tasks, it should still qualify for benefits even if it happened outside of your “workplace.” For example, workers sent on errands or workers who visit/oversee multiple sites need to move around for work and could be injured during those times away from the office. This does not necessarily stop the injury from being “work-related” and qualifying for benefits.
Attacking the work-relatedness of your injury is usually the main way that insurance carriers try to shut down claims, and our lawyers can help you understand how your medical records, doctor’s opinions, and records of the injury can all help prove to the court that your injury was sufficiently work-related.
Call Our Workers’ Compensation Lawyers in Radnor Today
If you were hurt at work, call Cardamone Law’s Workers’ Comp attorneys at (267) 651-7945.