Injuries individuals may suffer in the workplace range from minor soft tissue to catastrophic, traumatic brain or spinal cord injuries and amputations.
Certain jobs may put workers at a higher risk for more serious injuries. What happens if your incident leaves you with profound injuries? You might worry about what happens when your employer’s workers’ compensation coverage comes to an end. What recourse do you have if you have profound, disabling injuries that are taking longer to recover from than you’d anticipated?
You may qualify for a settlement
When most people think about workers’ comp., they envision going to see a doctor of their employer’s choosing and not having to pay for that care out of their own pocket. They might also know that such coverage covers a portion of their lost wages.
All injuries aren’t created equally, though. What happens if you outlast your employer’s coverage? Oklahoma workers’ compensation laws allow you to recover a potential settlement when they believe that you’ve reached maximum medical improvement.
What are the available settlement options?
Settlement offers that you may expect your employer’s workers’ comp. insurer to offer include lump-sum or structured. Each can be used to pay the medical bills you already have incurred as well as future costs, which is different from typical benefits that only cover health care costs for a limited time.
Lump-sum payments are different from structured ones in that an insurer in the former situation pays you a settlement once and then closes your case. An insurer will get you to sign a waiver of liability prohibiting you from suing them as part of their settlement offer.
Structured payments are payouts that you receive at set intervals. Workers’ compensation insurers often provide individuals who pursue this option with a card to use in paying future medical costs.
Not everyone’s injury or illness is serious enough to warrant a workers’ comp insurer to offer a lump sum settlement. You’ll want to learn more about the circumstances under which insurers offer this and whether your situation applies. You’ll then want to apprise yourself of the steps you need to take to secure a potential settlement.