What Benefits Are You Entitled to Under Minnesota Workers’ Compensation Law?

If you’ve been injured on the job in St Paul or Minneapolis, then Minnesota’s workers’ compensation should cover you. However, you’ll want a workers’ comp attorney on your side right from the beginning. An experienced attorney can help you access all the benefits you’re entitled to under the law, push back if an insurance company is denying important benefits, and more.

From a St Paul and Minneapolis Workers’ Comp Attorney: Benefits You’re Entitled To

There are three major types of benefits available to those injured on the job. The first type of benefit is meant to replace some of your wages during the period when you cannot work, and continue to do so if it turns out you can never work again. The second type of benefit is coverage of your medical bills. The final type is vocation rehabilitation, which helps you get back to your job or train for a new job.

Wage Replacement Benefits

Wage replacement benefits are either temporary or permanent, depending on your need, and can be both partial and full. It’s important to understand that you don’t qualify to get wage replacement benefits until you have missed three days of work. However, if you are out of work for 10 days or more, you are retroactively given wage-loss benefits back to the first day you missed work.

Types of Temporary Benefits

Temporary Total

Temporary total disability (TTD) covers you if you’re unable to work at all because of your injury. If this has happened to you, you are entitled to 2/3 of your gross weekly wage, calculated according to what you were being paid at the time you were injured. This is based on the assumption of a five-day work week, but it can be adjusted if you work four, six, or seven days a week. Since 2008, you can’t have these types of benefits for longer than 130 weeks unless you have been approved for retraining. There are also minimum and maximum amounts, and your lawyer can tell you more about what will apply in your case.

These benefits are usually cut off by the insurer if you return to work, if you stop looking for work for reasons apart from the injury, if your doctor clears you to return to work, but you refuse to do so, or if you have been offered gainful employment that works with your injury and rehabilitation plan but don’t take it. Benefits also end 90 days after you are told that you have reached “maximum medical improvement.” At that point, other benefits will kick in if you are still unable to work, but you’re no longer eligible for the temporary total disability. The term “maximum medical improvement” simply means that you have improved as much as doctors believe is possible.

Temporary Partial

Temporary partial disability (TPD) covers you if you can still work, but not at the same pay rate as before. This might be because you have to work a different job temporarily, or it might be because you temporarily cannot work the full number of hours you used to. In this case, you are eligible for 2/3 of the difference between the wage you were making at the time you were injured and the wage you are able to make now. You can only get TPD if you’re employed, and there are limits to how many weeks you can receive TPD. Talk to your attorney to learn what to expect.

Types of Permanent Benefits

As with temporary disability, there are both total and partial permanent benefits available.

Permanent Total

Permanent total disability (PTD) is available if you’re no longer able to work at all. The rate is 2/3 of the gross wage you were making at the time of the injury, and the minimum PTD rate is 65% of the statewide average weekly wage. These benefits always apply if you have lost your sight in both eyes, lost both arms at the shoulder, are permanently paralyzed, or something similar. You can also seek PTD if you’re no longer able to work and also have at least a 17% permanent partial disability to your whole body (or 15% if you were 50+ at the time you were injured and 13% if you were 55 or older).

Permanent Partial

Permanent partial disability (PPD) is a bit complicated to figure but is designed to kick in when you can still do some work, but you have reached maximum medical improvement and can never return to the type of work you were doing before or train to a job that pays the same. PPD benefits can be paid at the same time as TPD or PTD benefits, but not at the same time as TTD benefits. In most cases, these benefits kick in once TTD benefits end and you have verification that you’ve reached maximum medical improvement.

Medical Benefits

The law says that you are entitled to all “reasonable and necessary medical treatment or supplies,” but this is subject to interpretation. In general, you have to be given medical treatment, including chiropractic, psychological, podiatric, and surgical, as necessary to cure you. If you are permanently totally disabled, your medical benefits would also include nursing services, and these nursing services can be provided by a member of your family and paid to them by the workers’ compensation program.

Your medical benefits also include repairing or replacing any medical or health devices that were damaged in the accident, like dentures, hearing aids, glasses, etc. The benefits include not only the actual cost of your treatment but also the cost of travel to get to treatment, any cost you incur in accessing your medical reports, and even attorney fees in some cases. Work with an attorney, because the insurance companies are notorious for fighting to minimize injuries or claim that treatments or expenses are not necessary and reasonable. Your lawyer can help you work with your doctors to prove what is important and necessary to your treatment.

Rehabilitation Benefits

Vocational rehabilitation is often the most contentious of the benefits, and it’s essential to have a lawyer on your side to help you fight for what you deserve under the law. There are frequent disputes over this part of a workers’ comp claim regarding eligibility for rehab, the plan itself, retraining and what that means, and when it’s time to close the rehabilitation plan.

You have many benefits available to you under the workers’ comp program, but accessing them all can be frustrating and time-consuming. Contact the Atkinson Gerber Law Office in St Paul or Minneapolis today to fight for your rights.