Temporary Partial Disability Benefits:
If you were injured at work and the major cause of the injury is work related you are entitled to disability benefits. This is in addition to any medical treatment that’s required. Temporary disability benefits are available to you if you are unable to return to work. This inability to return to work is either temporary or permanent. Whether its temporary or permanent dependents on the injury and the doctors determination. The rate of pay is equal to seventy percent of you average weekly wage. The first of three days of the disability period go unpaid. As an injured employee this disability payment can not exceed 104 weeks. If you’ve suffered a consequential injury the time period can be extended for another 52 weeks.
Temporary Total Disability:
If you’ve been injured at work and the cause is related to your job you’ll be entitled to temporary disability. Temporary total disability means that you’re unable to perform your regular work requirements. This included’s your normal day to day work activity. Unlike temporary partial disability in the case of total temporary disability the employer isn’t given the opportunity to offer you light duty. This means that until your treating doctor changes your disability status you’re off work. This continues until you’re either released at maximum medical improvement or the restrictions have changed.
Permanent Partial Disability:
Once you’ve completed all your medical treatment and the doctor has released you at maximum medical improvement you get rated for permanent partial disability. This type disability recognizes that because of the injury you have some degree of partial disability. A good example may be found with a shoulder injury. If the shoulder injury resulted in a shoulder surgery you’ve suffered a degree of permanent disability. Maybe your unable to lift your arm over your head. Perhaps you’ve lost some grip strength. In any event there are limitations on your ability and those are a result of the work injury.
The level of disability impacts the money you get. This level of disability is determined by doctors reports. The insurance company will send you to their doctor who will rate you. The lower he rates you the less money you get. In contradiction to their doctors report we’ll send you to our doctor. Our Doctor will also rate you. Because our Doctor considers your case with more precision its our position that his rating better reflects your disability. Provided our doctors rating is higher than you’ll get more money. This means that both the insurance company doctor and our Doctor will rate you for percentage permanent partial disability.
Permanent Total Disability:
If after you’ve been released you have permanent total disability you are entitled to permanent disability payments. If this is the case you may be entitled to payments that continue until you reach retirement or 15 years. Which ever is longer is what you’ll be entitled to. Once again the determination of total permanent disability is made by doctors. Both insurance company and your attorney will send you to their doctors. Most times the insurance company Doctors report is different from our Doctors report. In this event we have a trial and admit the doctors report as evidence.