A workers' compensation claim can result in many unpleasant changes in your life. Besides the health issues and the stress that you have to deal with, financial problems also often arise. Recently one of my workers' comp clients called me to say that he was very concerned that he was about to be sued for past due credit cards. In addition, he had other debts and was receiving daily phone calls and threatening letters.
He wanted to know if he should consider bankruptcy. As you may know, my husband, Jonathan Ginsberg, has been a consumer bankruptcy lawyer for many years and I asked him to speak with my client. Here is what Jonathan has to say about dealing with these debt issues:More on Weekly Wage Benefits are Exempt from Garnishment
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In our Georgia workers compensation law practice, we regularly see carpal tunnel cases. Carpel tunnel syndrome arises when the muscles in the wrist swell and compress the nerve running down the arm into the hand. When this median nerve gets squeezed, you will experience pain, numbness and tingling in the hands. In severe cases, a patient can suffer permanent nerve damage. Females are more likely than males to develop carpel tunnel syndrome.
If rest does not resolve the condition, the usual treatment for carpel tunnel injuries is surgery called a carpel tunnel release expands the space for the nerve and tendons and thereby relieves the pressure on the nerve.
Carpel tunnel injuries usually arise from repetitive motion type jobs. Examples of these types of jobs include:
- deboning chickens
- typing
- sewing
- meat packing
- small parts assemblers
At Ginsberg Law Offices, we represent many carpel tunnel claimants. An important part of our work is to get our clients to a doctor who specializes in wrist, hand and repetitive motion injuries and to see to it that our clients get appropriate rehabilitation care.More on Carpal Tunnel Diagnosis Need Not Arise from Repetitive Motion Job Tasks
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Several times a year, I get a call from an injured worker who is facing a denial from the insurance company on the grounds that no timely notice of a claim was filed. The Georgia workers' compensation statute contains two separate notice provisions, both of which must be met:
Notice to Employer
The Georgia Code says that an injured worker must give notice to his employer within thirty (30) days after his on-the-job injury. We advise our clients to give notice, preferably in writing, to a direct supervisor. The the sooner you give this notice the better. When giving notice to your supervisor you should be as clear as possible about the exact date and time you were injured and about exactly what happened. The more specific the better as we find that employers tend to question vague and uncertain reports about a work injury.
Remember that workers' compensation covers injuries "arising out of and in the course of " your employment. This means that an injury incurred while you are on break, or coming or going from work may be challenged. Be suspicious if your employer's workers' comp rep tries to put words in your mouth about when or how your injury happened. A quick word about the phrase "arising out of and in the course of employment." The Georgia State Board of Workers' Compensation spends a lot of its time listening to lawyers argue about what this phrase means. What you tell your employer about your injury, and what you tell your doctor can make a huge difference. For this reason, we encourage injured workers to seek legal counsel sooner rather than later.
Once you report an on-the-job injury, your employer is supposed to write up a "first report of injury" and send it to both the State Board of Workers' Compensation and to its insurance carrier. Not surprisingly, this does not always occur as employers try to avoid filing claims with their workers' comp. carriers. Your employer may delay filing the required paperwork and may tell you to file with your group health insurer. They may suggest you file under short or long term disability for lost time from work. Do not let this happen as group health and/or STD/LTD carriers will not pay for either lost wages or medical costs related to a work related injuries, as workers' compensation insurance is considered "primary" coverage. We have seen some situations in which the group health carrier initially accepts the claim, but later rejects it once the file is audited. This could leave you stuck with a medical bill that otherwise should be covered.
Notice to State Board of Workers Compensation
In theory, once you give your employer notice of your injury, the employer will file a notice of claim with the State Board of Workers' Compensation. A better course of action would be for you to file that notice directly. You file notice using a form called a WC-14, and this form must be filed within one (1) year from the date of your accident. Our office regularly completes and files WC-14 forms for our client. If you are not sure how to fill out this form, you should speak to an experienced attorney as filling out this form improperly can negatively impact your case later on.More on How, When and To Whom Do I Give Notice of my On-the-Job Injury?
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I recently received a question from a gentleman named Charlie who asks:
I filed chapter 13 about 2 years ago, now I got hurt on Job and am receiving W.C. In the process W.C. is to build a new house for me. How does chapter 13 come to play?
My husband, Jonathan Ginsberg, has been a bankruptcy lawyer in Atlanta for over 20 years. I asked him to respond to this question. Here is his response:
Charlie, first of all, it is important that both your workers' compensation lawyer and your bankruptcy lawyer know about your accident, the house construction benefit and possible settlement. Assuming that your weekly wage benefit check is less than your regular salary, you need to make arrangements to keep your Chapter 13 plan current. Given your injury, your bankruptcy lawyer may be able to amend your plan so that your payment is reduced to account for your reduced income. Assuming that you foresee a settlement within the next three years, you may be able to make up the difference in a lump sum at settlement.
I have always taken the position that lump sum settlements in workers' compensation cases may be treated as exempt property purusant to Georgia's exemption statute. You should speak to your bankruptcy lawyer about this. This means that you may be able to keep some or all of your settlement even if your plan is paying only a small percentage back to your unsecured creditors. In a similar vein, I would argue that the new house should be considered as exempt because it is necessary for your on-going support and maintenance. Here, too, you need to seek counsel from both your bankruptcy lawyer and your workers' compensation lawyer.
Finally, you need to advise your workers' compensation lawyer to file an entry of appearance in bankruptcy court and to file a motion to approve both any settlement and any attorney's fees claimed. Bankruptcy judges usually do not have any problem with approving either a settlement or a fee contract, but if you don't follow the required procedures, there could be delays.
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You have been injured on the job and are now receiving Georgia workers' compensation benefits. Who decides which doctor you can see? What if you are not happy with the company doctor? Are there any circumstances when you can choose a doctor of your choice?
In this video, attorney Jodi Ginsberg speaks about the rights of injured workers to receive quality medical care as well as options to change treating physicians in the event that company provided medical care is sub-standard.
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Our firm's blog and web site makes frequent reference to the Georgia State Board of Workers' Compensation. The State Board functions as the court system for workers' compensation claims in Georgia. The Board is a creation of the state legislature and it uses different forms that what you might see in a Georgia State or Superior Court.
I hope that this blog, along with the Ginsberg Law workers' compensation web site, will be helpful resources for you as you educate yourself about Georgia workers' comp. law. Another very useful site is the web site published by the State Board itself. While some of the material on the State Board's site is geared towards lawyers, insurance companies and employers, there is a great deal of useful information there for injured workers. For example the State Board web site has a very helpful FAQ section written for the benefit of injured workers. Another section is written for employers – as injured worker, however, you can learn from this as well. Another area of the State Board web site that you may want to review is the section that includes the various official forms that employers, insurers and claimant's lawyers must use.
One of the main themes of the State Board site relates to how workers' compensation is different than personal injury law. If you understand, for example, that pain and suffering are not part of a workers' compensation claim, or that an insurance company does not have to settle, you can make better choices in your own case. If you are an injured worker, you obviously have concerns that transcend the organizational structure of the State Board of Workers' Compensation. However, you may find that an understanding of how the Board works can help you maximize your recovery should you have an injury claim.
Filed under Georgia Workers' Compensation, Understanding the Law by
If you are injured on the job and you are a covered worker under the workers' compensation law, your employer is required to provide you with medical care. However, as you may suspect, what you consider as reasonable and necessary care may not be the same thing as what your employer and its insurer want to provide.
The posted panel of physicians is the starting point for your claim for medical treatment. Under Georgia's workers compensation law, employers are required to post a list or "panel" of doctors in a reasonably accessible place for employees to see. A valid panel should have at least 6 indpendent medical providers on it and at least one of these doctors should be an orthopedist.
If your employer has a posted panel, you may select a doctor and schedule an appointment, with the cost borne by the ermployer/insurer. Often, your employer will try to direct you to a particular doctor or clinic with whom the employer has an on-going relationship. Under Georgia law, you as the injured worker have the right to select from any of the doctors on the panel. You can do yourself a real favor by avoiding doctors who may not have your best interest at heart – Ginsberg Law's extensive experience with physicians throughout the State can be a huge benefit to you if you become our client.
If you choose to select a doctor on the panel that is different from the doctor that your supervisor is "suggesting," you would be wise to ask the doctor's office to verify that the workers' compensation insurer has agreed to pay for the appointment. Some employers honestly do not understand that employees have the right to choose a physician, and sometimes employers and insurers will intentionally playing games with the payment of medical providers for unrepresented claimants even if those providers are authorized.
If there is no posted panel of doctors, or if there is a panel that is not accessible, or if you have never been given any explanation of how the panel works, Georgia law can provide you the right to select your own doctor. As you might imagine, employers and their insurers will do everything in their power to retain control of the course of your medical treatment. You may hear things like "that doctor is not authorized," or "that doctor is not on our panel," or "that doctor is not in our network." Be aware that there have been dozens of litigated cases in Georgia relating to the posted panel, and factors that either validate or invalidate the panel. Part of our job as your attorney is to identify whether the posted panel issue is something to pursue or not.
To illustrate the importance of asserting your rights under workers compensation law, I would like to relate to you the story of a recent client of mine who suffered permanent nerve damage in his spine because of delays caused by the insurance company. As any reputable doctor will tell you, time is of the essence if you have a serious injury. If you have a serious injury to your back, neck, arm, knee, foot, head or hand a delay in diagnosis can result in permanent injury and inability to return to work.
Our case involved a situation where a client hired us after enduring almost a year of frustrating delays in medical care. The client had a significant back injury after falling off the back of a truck. He hit the ground and had sharp, shooting pains in his back and radiating down his leg, with numbness in his toes. He was ordered by his employer to see the clinic down the road from his job. For several months, he stayed under the care of this clinic – taking medication and undergoing therapy that did not help, and actually made him worse.
When this injured worker (not yet represented by our firm) asked for a referral to a specialist he was ignored and offered more therapy. The clinic doctors released him to "light duty," which he tried to do with very limited success. Finally, after many months the clinic doctor ordered an MRI scan, which revealed herniated discs at 2 levels impinging on a nerve in the spine.
Again, the injured worker asked for a referral to a spine specialist and after another full month of delay, he finally got the referral. The specialist confirmed the diagnosis of disc and nerve injury and ultimately the injured worker (now our client) underwent a fusion of his spine. Unfortunately, the surgery did not relieve his pain, because our client had incurred permanent nerve damage due to the delay in care.
