Sacramento Workers’ Compensation Attorneys

Workers’ Compensation Five Essential Benefits

Besides being injured from a single event or a traumatic injury, a Sacramento workers’ compensation attorney can also assist you with injuries resulting from repeated exposures at work, such as hurting your wrist from motion repetition or losing your hearing a constant loud noise.

A Sacramento workers’ compensation attorney can help you with the five essential benefits provided by workers’ compensation insurance:

• Medical care: Paid for by your employer to help you recover from an injury or illness caused by work.
• Temporary disability benefits: Payments if you lose wages because your injury prevents you from doing your usual job while recovering.
• Permanent disability benefits: Payments if you don’t recover completely.
• Supplemental job displacement benefits (if your date of injury is in 2004 or later): Vouchers to help pay for retraining or skill enhancement if you don’t recover completely and don’t return to work for your employer.
• Death benefits: Payments to your spouse, children, or other dependents if you die from a job injury or illness.

In addition to the five essential benefits provided by workers’ compensation insurance, a Sacramento workers’ compensation attorney may also be able to help with claims directly from the person who injured you or help you obtain necessary governmental benefits. So, whether you are a warehouse employee or dock worker in West Sacramento, an agriculture industry worker in South Sacramento, or other industry employee in the Greater Sacramento area, we can help you get the benefits you are owed.

We Help Clients File Workers’ Compensation Claims

Here’s how a workers’ compensation attorney can help with a claim:

• Help you report your injury if you have not already done so
• Investigate the injury and find witnesses
• Help you choose your own doctor if that’s what you want to do
• Give you expert legal advice at every step, before decisions are made
• Handle the legal complexities so you can heal

Qualified Medical Evaluators (QMEs) or Potentially Agreed Medical Evaluators (AMEs)

Injured workers have the right to be examined by Qualified medical evaluators (QMEs) or potentially agreed medical evaluators (AMEs). The examination determines your rights to benefits or can resolve a dispute over recommendations by the treating physician. Qualified medical evaluations are traditionally licensed medical doctors but can also include other healthcare specialties such as chiropractors, dentists, and optometrists.

Additional resources from our Sacramento workers’ compensation attorneys

• Claims for Serious and Willful Misconduct of an Employer
• What are an injured employee’s rights to medical treatment?
• What are an injured employee’s rights to permanent disability?
• What are an injured employee’s rights to temporary disability payments just after the injury?
• How to Choose from a Panel QME (Qualified Medical Evaluator)
• What is an AME or QME? How do you receive a Panel List?
• Social Security Disability
• Workers’ Compensation for Public Safety Officers

What should I do if I have an on-the-job injury?

If you have an on-the-job injury, you should immediately report the injury to your supervisor. Reporting the problem immediately helps prevent delays and other issues, such as obtaining necessary medical care and temporary disability payments. Then, call one of our experienced workers’ compensation attorneys to schedule your free consultation.

The best way to protect your workers’ compensation rights is to report your injury when you learn or believe that your job may have caused the damage. The law requires your employer to provide you with a claim form within one working day after learning about your injury or illness. If your employer fails to give you the claim form, it should be an immediate red flag that your employer or insurance company may not cooperate. This is another reason to contact a Sacramento workers’ compensation attorney immediately.

What if I need emergency treatment?

If you need emergency treatment, don’t delay. When you seek treatment, tell the healthcare provider who treats you that your injury or illness is job-related.

What do the terms AOE/COE mean?

To have a claim covered by workers’ compensation insurance or be administered within the workers’ compensation system, the application must be AOE/COE, a workers’ compensation term that means “arising out of and occurring during employment.” Simplified, it means your injury may have happened on the job.

Why would a claim be delayed or denied?

If an insurance carrier isn’t paying your benefits, they must send you a letter explaining why they have been delayed (denied). The letter must provide the information needed to avoid further delay.

If your claim is denied, the insurance company believes you were not injured or your injury was not work-related. A workers’ compensation attorney can help explain this to you and find a solution.

What does it mean to have a workers’ compensation disability?

To have a disability within the workers’ compensation system is often misunderstood. Unlike the Social Security environment, a disability does not mean you cannot work. Most people who have workers’ compensation disabilities continue to be gainfully employed. A disability is simply a condition that makes engaging in physical, social, and work activities complex.

Workers’ Compensation Hearings

Workers’ compensation hearings vary depending on the particular issue. Here are the basic steps taken at a workers’ compensation hearing:

1. The judge will discuss the general nature of the dispute with the attorneys to achieve a more narrow focus.
2. The attorney will submit evidence from various documents, including medical reports that support or refute the claims.
3. Once the materials are introduced, the judge will often allow the parties to call witnesses when appropriate to provide live testimony. Each side typically has an opportunity to question the witnesses.
4. Once the documents are entered and the witnesses examined, the attorneys will deliver closing arguments.
5. The judge takes the matter under submission/consideration.
6. After considering the case, the judge will typically issue a decision, often called a Findings and Award.
7. If not timely appealed, the findings and award will become the court’s final decision.

What Is Maximum Medical Improvement (MMI)?

MMI means your condition has stabilized, and significant changes are not likely. This is a critical juncture in your case. Once you have reached MMI, a doctor can assess how much impairment and disability you have and hopefully have your disability rated and your case resolved. Settling a workers’ compensation case before reaching MMI is not optimum, which one of our workers’ compensation attorneys can explain to you at your free consultation.

Workers’ Compensation Mandatory Settlement Conference

A mandatory settlement conference is an event that traditionally takes place with the workers’ compensation judge. It is a conference in which the injured employee, insurance adjuster, and attorneys are required to attend or, in some cases, be available by telephone. At the meeting, the judge requires attorneys to review the facts and laws with each other and their respective clients. The court encourages the parties to discuss the matter in detail and hopefully come to a resolution. Attendance at the settlement conference is generally mandatory. The decision at the settlement conference is entirely voluntary.

What is considered a permanent disability?

If you have a permanent disability, this does not mean you cannot work. It merely means you have a condition that results in some limitations. That limitation may affect your ability to earn a living.

Call Eason & Tambornini today at (916) 438-1819 to schedule a free consultation with a skilled workers’ compensation attorney.