By: Russell Keener  —  December 7, 2011
 

Have you been injured on the job? If so, you may think it’s a sim­ple mat­ter to file your work­ers’ com­pen­sa­tion claim, meet with the com­pany rep­re­sen­ta­tive, and receive ben­e­fits, right?

Actu­ally, prob­a­bly not. It can be dif­fi­cult to file work­ers’ com­pen­sa­tion claims, and one rea­son is the forms them­selves are quite dif­fi­cult to under­stand. More impor­tant than that is that fil­ing them incor­rectly or leav­ing facts out can delay or even cause a judge to deny med­ical assis­tance or income ben­e­fits altogether.

Fur­ther, you’ll need a lawyer if you decide to go to court to defend your case, and you’ll need a lawyer if you go to court so that your case is prop­erly pre­sented. Doing so could give you a far bet­ter finan­cial out­come than you might get if you sim­ply set­tle for what the insur­ance com­pany wants to give you. Your Atlanta attor­ney will help you through the process of fil­ing and if nec­es­sary defend­ing your claim in court, so that you get the ben­e­fits you deserve.

How your Atlanta work­ers’ com­pen­sa­tion attor­ney helps you with your case:

Edu­ca­tion

The first thing your Mari­etta work­ers’ com­pen­sa­tion attor­ney will do is to inter­view you to deter­mine the mer­its of your case. Then, he or she will edu­cate you about work­ers’ com­pen­sa­tion and how it works. He or she will help you walk through fil­ing your claim, dis­cussing any key issues about your claim that deserve spe­cial attention.·

Gath­er­ing key evidence

One of the key items your work­ers’ comp attor­ney will help you do is to gather key evi­dence to sup­port your claim, includ­ing pay­roll infor­ma­tion, your per­son­nel file, med­ical records, and so forth.

Inves­ti­gat­ing third party claims and legal issues related to your case

In addi­tion to your work­ers’ com­pen­sa­tion claim, your lawyer will also inves­ti­gate any third party claims you may be able to file, and any legal issues that may come up in rela­tion to your claim, such as med­ical cau­sa­tion for your injuries, or will­ful mis­con­duct that may have had an impact on your injury.·

Full explo­ration of your condition

Your lawyer will also talk to your physi­cian or other med­ical per­son­nel after he or she inter­views you so as to fully under­stand the extent of your condition.·

Advo­cacy

If any liens are asserted for your case, your lawyer will help deter­mine how valid they are.

Your lawyer will also advo­cate for you by con­tact­ing the insur­ance com­pany han­dling your work­ers’ com­pen­sa­tion insur­ance claim and the Geor­gia State Board of Work­ers’ Com­pen­sa­tion to notify them of the claim, and will then help you file the claim for ben­e­fits if not already done.·

If the case has not already been addressed, the attor­ney will dis­cuss with you whether or not the case should be nego­ti­ated with the insur­ance com­pany to set­tle. If a hear­ing has been requested, your attor­ney will help you pre­pare for the hear­ing by edu­cat­ing you about it, and will also meet with any med­ical providers or other peo­ple who may be wit­nesses for your case, to pre­pare them for their own depositions.

Your lawyer may also advise you through­out your case on reha­bil­i­ta­tive issues like meet­ing with voca­tional reha­bil­i­ta­tion spe­cial­ists, nurse case man­agers, your employer, and insur­ance adjusters as necessary.·

Prepar­ing for court

In addi­tion to prepar­ing your own wit­nesses for the case, your attor­ney may also pre­pare writ­ten ques­tions for and then depose peo­ple for the claimant’s side, includ­ing physi­cians, wit­nesses to the injury event, and so forth.

In prepa­ra­tion for the hear­ing, your lawyer will also pre­pare exhibits for the hear­ing if necessary.·

After the ruling

After the rul­ing, your attor­ney may also dis­cuss with you whether or not you should appeal your case if it has not come out in your favor.

Those who are con­sid­er­ing fil­ing a work­ers’ comp claim or who have ques­tions about the process should con­tact the Geor­gia work­ers’ com­pen­sa­tion lawyers at The Keener Law Firm.