Regarding workers’ compensation, Florida seems poised for a transformative 2024. Recently, the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) unveiled a proposal that could be a game-changer for businesses in the state.
In Florida, when you get hurt on the job, you are entitled to two classes of benefits: medical and indemnity or lost wages. Medical treatment starts with the goal of treating the person until they reach a status called maximum medical improvement (MMI). After MMI, the goal is to provide palliative care or pain management. MMI also shifts an injured worker’s entitlement to indemnity benefits. After MMI, temporary wages are cut off. With the exception of rehabilitation temporary total benefits, only permanent indemnity benefits are available.
While every case is unique with different factors, it is possible to prove permanent and total disability through a Florida workers’ compensation case. The discussion starts by understanding the statutes, case law, and past experience. In every situation, it’s ideal to reach out to a workers’ compensation lawyer to dive into the details of your case.
A Traumatic Brain Injury, as a result of your work, can be a scary situation to navigate, but your first step should be medical care. From there, your options depend on a number of factors that are discussed in this article.
Traumatic Brain Injury or TBI is when an injury affects the brain’s function.[1]
Severe work injuries are scary. For purposes of this article, “severe” is going to be used when describing a work injury that prevents someone from working ever again, essentially meaning a total disability injury. This is not to diminish other injuries that can also be very bad and difficult for daily life. However, let’s focus on the benefits available after a severe work injury that would prevent someone from re-entering the workforce.
On November 12, 2021, the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation issued a Final Order approving the recommendation from the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) for a statewide overall rate decrease of 4.9% of workers’ compensation insurance rates.
Earlier this year, the Florida Legislature and Governor DeSantis signed a bill related to the liability of businesses, entities, and individuals regarding COVID-19.
Defense counsel routinely uses a number of defenses in order to deny paying temporary benefits to injured workers. These defenses assume your client has already met the threshold requirements for either Temporary Partial Disability (TPD) or Temporary Total Disability (TTD) i.e., restrictions from an authorized treating physician and not at Maximum Medical Improvement (MMI).
There are rare occasions when an injured worker is entitled to TTD but not receiving it while actively employed with the Employer and the Carrier has not asserted an affirmative defense to payment of TTD.
This question has been asked by countless employees who have been injured on the job and believe it was caused by their employer’s negligence. Outside of an employment situation, like a car accident, slip and fall, or medical injury, negligence can be a reason that the injured party seeks damages against the responsible person in court. Therefore, most people think the same rights exist when someone is injured at work and their employer was negligent. However, that is not the case.