The Founders Law Firm works with clients throughout Georgia. People are injured at work almost every day. If you work in a power plant, a nursing home, a paper mill, or elsewhere, your job carries risks.
The workers’ compensation system was instituted 100 years ago, and is designed to give employees medical care and compensation for lost wages, disability, and wrongful death resulting from injuries sustained at work. The benefits are granted irrespective of who was responsible for the accident, with certain limitations.
Does the workers’ Compensation system provide adequate protection?
While quite often workers recover from light injuries and return to work rapidly, in some cases work accidents are fatal or result in debilitating injuries. This might be the beginning of a nightmare for workers and their families, who find themselves facing debilitating injuries, long-term disability, loss of income, unaffordable medical expenses, and no prospect of finding decent employment.
To make matters worse, employers and their workers’ compensation insurers could also:
- Challenge a worker’s injury claim as pre-existing, exaggerated, or having nothing to do with work;
- Send the worker to last minute medical appointments far from home;
- Request that the employee return to work before recovering;
- Offer the worker a position that is below his or her qualifications;
- Provide below standard or inadequate medical care;
- Determine an unrealistic impairment rate;
- Deny the wage loss compensation that the worker deserves.
Such frustrating and dishonest actions are aimed at limiting the financial impact of the claim.