Workers Compensation Law Basics

Workers Compensation is a legal procedure that has been designed to give compensation to the injured or disabled employees with monetary benefits. The employees, if suffers any harm or injury at the time of employment, either receive medical care or monetary awards. The rules and procedures guiding the above is the Workers Compensation Law. This law varies from state to state. State statues establish this framework for most employment. Federal statutes are limited to federal employees.

How this Law helps the workers?

It is the only remedy to workers as they are not entitled to sue an employer for injuries received on the job. This compensation is made from the state compensation fund. It will not only compensate the injured or disabled worker, if he is killed, his dependant family will also be provided with certain benefits. This reduces the headache of the employees and their family to undergo through a long litigation process.

What should be taken care of before filing the claim?

It is important to note that the injury must have occurred at the place of work or from a work related task. After an employee is hurt, first immediate action will be to take him to a doctor for medical help and then to inform the employer about the whole incident. Forms that are available to the employer should be properly filled up. After that he should collect all the medical reports from the doctor. The worker should complete all documentation and consult a lawyer before filing the claim. He should take proper legal advice to make his claim correctly. The compensation board will review the claim and take the final decision

Apart from a lawyer, the workers compensation representatives of the union can deal with the process of filing and other official works. The amount of claim received depends on the seriousness of injury. An employee can suffer temporary total disability meaning loss of some wages. If he suffers a partial loss of function, he will be termed under permanent partial disability. And if his function is lost permanently, he will be termed under permanent total disability. Depending on his physical condition the injured worker will be rewarded with medical fees and future wages.

It is important to remember that even in case of a minor injury, medical check-up is needed. If the unattended minor injury later lead to a physical problem, the employee may not be able to prove that the injury occurred at the job. State compensation board may not approve his claim in such a case.

The official time limit of filing a claim for compensation may vary from state to state but generally one should file within a month. Best is, if one feels that he has been injured at the work site, he should file the claim immediately.