Income Benefits for Injured Workers
Iowa's workers' compensation system provides a number of benefits on behalf of injured workers, including all costs for medical care to treat the injury, and income replacement benefits while you are off work recovering. In addition, benefits for any injury or condition that causes some permanent loss of function of your body will entitle you to permanent partial disability benefits. The amount of benefits you receive depends on a number of different factors, including the nature and severity or your injury, your ability to return to the kind of work you were doing at the time of the injury and many other factors.
Benefits may be provided not only for the injured worker, but also for the children and spouse of an injured worker who dies as the result of a work injury. Some of the types of available work comp benefits are discussed below. To learn more about your legal rights and the types of benefits that may be available to you, contact the Trevino Law Offices in Fort Dodge, Iowa.
Types of Income Benefits
If you have suffered a work related injury in Iowa, you may be eligible for these and other types of income benefits:
- Temporary Total Disability: If you are unable to return to work for more than consecutive three days, you may be entitled to temporary total disability (TTD) benefits. You are entitled to receive these payments until you return to your job or return to substantially similar employment, or when the company doctors says you have reached MMI (Maximum Medical Improvement).
- Permanent Partial Disability: If you sustain an injury that causes any permanent long term problems then you may be entitled to permanent partial disability benefits. This is true even if the injury is limited to a hand, or foot or leg or arm. Injuries to the back, neck, hip, shoulder or head are compensated "industrially." That is, if the injury affects your capacity to work in the future or limits the kinds of jobs you can do in the future, you will be entitled to permanent partial disability benefits.
- Permanent Total Disability: If your injury is so severe that you are unable to return to gainful employment, you may be eligible for permanent total disability (PTD) benefits. These payments are payable as long as you remain totally disabled and, possibly, for the rest of your life.
Other types of workers' compensation benefits include healing period benefits (while you heal) and death benefits (for dependents of workers killed in a work accident). If you feel you are not being treated fairly or you are not receiving the amount of benefits you may be entitled to receive, please contact an attorney.
Contact the Trevino Law Offices
If you have been injured in a work related accident, do not trust your employer or their insurance company to protect your rights. Retain a lawyer who knows the law and is dedicated to protecting your rights.
Our attorney, Tito Trevino, has been handling workers' compensation cases for more than 35 years. He understands the law and fights for each of his clients. To schedule a free consultation with attorney Trevino, call 888.325.8507, or contact us by e-mail.
