What Are You Entitled To?

Our Workers’ Compensation Laws were designed to protect you and your loved ones against hardships that can occur if you are injured or killed while working for your employer.  If your employer has more than three employees, then your employer is required to carry workers’ compensation insurance coverage. The workers’ comp insurance coverage will help you with two things:  1) Medical Expenses and 2) Loss of Income.

Medical Expenses

Any medical expenses that are reasonably related to your work-related injury will be paid by your employer or by the workers’ comp insurance carrier.  The key to this lies within the phrase “reasonably related” and as such, your employer (or its insurance carrier) will be involved somewhat in directing and managing your medical treatment.  This can be a very important reason you may wish to hire an attorney so that you can have someone overseeing the process to ensure your rights are being protected.

Loss of Income

Loss of income is referred to in workers’ compensation lingo as indemnity payments.  They may be in the form of Temporary Total Disability or Temporary Partial Disability payments.  Temporary total disability (TTD) payments are payments for loss of income when you are totally unable to work.  However, before you are entitled to these benefits, you must have missed 7 days of work.  After missing 7 days of work, you are then entitled to TTD payments.  The amount of your TTD payments is your compensation rate (“comp rate”).  Your comp rate will be 2/3 of your “average weekly wage”.  Your “average weekly wage” is generally your average wages earned over the previous 52 weeks from your injury,  although there are exceptions and other methods of calculations that can be used. After you miss more than 3 weeks of work, you are entitled to be reimbursed 2/3 of your average weekly wage for the first week you missed as well.

If your doctor says that you can return to work but at a reduced capacity, you may be entitled to Temporary Partial Disability (TPD) payments are when you are able to work, but you cannot perform all of your work duties and must be placed on work restrictions.  Your TPD payments will be the 2/3 of the difference between your average weekly wage before the injury occurred and the average weekly wage after the injury occurred. If you suffer a permanent injury, you may also be entitled to Permanent Partial Disability (PPD) or Permanent Total Disability (PTD).  Under these circumstances, your doctor will determine whether and to what extent you have suffered permanent injury and assign a percentage as outlined by the American Medical Association Guidelines.  North Carolina law outlines specific disability time frames for specific body parts injured.  If you are given a PPD or PTD rating, you may be entitled to compensation based on that scheduled time frame and the percentage of disability that your doctor outlines.

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