If you have a work-related injury or illness, your employer is required by law to pay for workers’ compensation benefits. You could get hurt by:

One event at work, such as hurting your back in a fall, lifting a heavy item or getting hurt in a car accident while making deliveries.

-or–

Repeated exposures at work, such as hurting your wrist from doing the same motion over and over or losing your hearing because of constant loud noise.

Report the injury to your employer by telling your supervisor right away. If your injury or illness developed over time, report it as soon as you learn or believe it was caused by your job.

Reporting promptly helps prevent problems and delays in receiving benefits, including medical care you may need. If your employer does not learn about your injury within 30 days and this prevents your employer from fully investigating the injury and how you were injured, you could lose your right to receive workers’ compensation benefits.

Get emergency treatment if you need it. Your employer may tell you where to go for treatment. Tell the health care provider who treats you that your injury or illness is job-related.

Fill out a claim form and give it to your employer. Your employer must give or mail you a claim form within one working day after learning about your injury or illness.

Yes. Giving the completed form to your employer opens your workers’ compensation case. It starts the process for finding all benefits you may qualify for under state law. Those benefits include, but are not limited to:

A presumption that your injury or illness was caused by work if your claim is not accepted or denied within 90 days of giving the completed claim form to your employer

Up to $10,000 in treatment under medical treatment guidelines while the claims administrator considers your claim

An increase in your disability payments if they’re late

A way to resolve any disagreements between you and the claims administrator over whether your injury or illness happened on the job, the medical treatment you receive and whether you will receive permanent disability benefits.

Workers’ comp insurance provides five basic benefits:

Medical care: Paid for by your employer to help you recover from an injury or illness caused by work

Temporary disability benefits: Payments if you lose wages because your injury prevents you from doing your usual job while recovering

Permanent disability benefits: Payments if you don’t recover completely from your injury

Supplemental job displacement benefits (if your date of injury is in 2004 or later): Vouchers to help pay for retraining or skill enhancement if you don’t recover completely and don’t return to work for your employer

Death benefits: Payments to your spouse, children or other dependents if you die from a job injury or illness.

Temporary disability (TD) benefits are payments you get if you lose wages because your injury prevents you from doing your usual job while recovering.

There are two types of TD benefits. If you cannot work at all while recovering, you receive temporary total disability (TTD) benefits. If you can’t work your full schedule while recovering, you receive temporary partial disability benefit (TPD) payments.

As a general rule, TD pays two-thirds of the gross (pre-tax) wages you lose while you are recovering from a job injury. However, you cannot receive more than the maximum weekly amount set by law. Your wages are figured out by using all forms of income you receive from work: wages, food, lodging, tips, commissions, overtime and bonuses. Wages can also include earnings from work you did at other jobs at the time you were injured.

TD payments begin when your doctor says you can’t do your usual work for more than three days or you get hospitalized overnight. Payments must be made every two weeks. Generally, TD stops when you return to work, or when the doctor releases you for work, or says your injury has improved as much as it’s going to. If you were injured after Apr. 19, 2004, your TD payments won’t last more than 104 weeks within a period of 2 years from the first payment for most injuries. If you were injured after Jan. 1, 2008, your TD payments won’t last more than 104 weeks within a period of 5 years from the date of your injury. Payments for a few long-term injuries such as severe burns or chronic lung disease can go longer than 104 weeks. TD payments for these injuries can continue for up to 240 weeks of payment within a five-year period.

Most workers fully recover from job injuries, but some continue to have medical problems. Permanent disability (PD) is any lasting disability that results in a reduced earning capacity after maximum medical improvement is reached. If your injury or illness results in PD you are entitled to PD benefits, even if you are able to go back to work.

Under the protection of the law, individuals who have filed for workers’ compensation will be guarded from any form of discrimination, negative repercussions, or other types of consequences due to filing a claim. If your employer has retaliated against you due to coming forward for your injury, we can help determine which course of action to take to further protect your interests and rights as an injured worker.

We provide aggressive legal representation to injured workers throughout California’s Central Valley.

We have more than 60 years of combined legal experience and a successful track record of assisting injured workers and their families with all types of workers’ compensation claims.

Berry, Smith & Bartell works on a contingency fee basis which means we will not collect legal fees unless we recover compensation for your claim.