Personal injury attorneys often represent clients who have experienced a serious injury at the place of their employment. They protect their client’s rights while advising him or her through the safest and most beneficial legal options regarding insurance, possible compensation for lost wages, disability, and above all, quality medical evaluation and treatment.
Under most worker’s compensation laws (which vary by state) employees are required to be examined and evaluated by a medical professional after being injured on the job site. It is important that the employee alerts the manager or supervisor in charge about his or her work-related trauma, usually within thirty days of the accident. The employee should be as specific as possible with the employer in the explanation of the incident, and then he or she should keep a written copy of this exchange of information, as this type of documentation is extremely helpful to the personal injury attorney assigned to the case.
If the particular job assignment assigned to the employee is indeed the direct cause of the trauma, the case will process through the next steps in the legal system.
A personal injury attorney will also advise the client on his or her possible eligibility to receive Temporary Total Disability or Permanent Total Disability, depending on the severity of the trauma sustained and the total amount of time the client is unable to work as a result of being hurt. If the client qualifies for either disability program, he or she receives monetary compensation for a specific amount of time in increments.
Sometimes a client will qualify as a Permanent Partial Disability, which occurs when the employee is hurt in such a way that he or she is able to return to work, but needs special requirements or is restricted from performing certain tasks on the job site.
A personal injury attorney’s services many times will provide for their suffering client a completely separate examination with an independent physician in order to double check the diagnosis. The reason for this second opinion is that many doctors are paid by the worker’s compensation insurance company to evaluate the work-related issue and send the employee back to the job site.
The problem may not be fully examined and treated since doctors generally try to keep the worker’s compensation injuries to the minimum. Personal Injury Attorneys are trained and licensed to guide their client through the process of dealing with the health care professionals and the insurance company involved in the accident.