Florida Workers’ Compensation Lawyer
National statistics show that fewer than 40% of injured workers who are eligible for work comp benefits apply. If you are looking for workers’ comp legal advice, then here it is: Apply for the benefits that you are entitled to receive.
As workers’ compensation attorneys, we see client who never file for medical care or lost wages. They are afraid to rock the boat, to make their bosses mad or stand out among coworkers. This type of thinking can be seen as honorable to some, but at the end of the day it will only make matters worse.
Work Injuries in Florida Happen Daily
Work injuries happen as a matter of daily occurrence. When injured, a person needs medical care and time to rest. If a body is not given time to recover it will breakdown and a minor injury can become a major medical condition. While it is commendable to want to pull your weight at work, if you are hurt and cannot perform your duties you will become more likely to lose your job for failure to perform.
Research has shown alarming results of failure to obtain medical care from workers’ compensation. – In one state approximately 20% all workers with work-related amputations did not receive any workers’ compensation benefits. A similar study reported that approximately 33.3% of workers with amputations in another state had not received workers’ compensation benefits. That same study also found that one-third of workers with employer recorded carpal-tunnel syndrome failed to pursue workers’ compensation benefits.
Why are people not pursuing their statutorily provided workers’ compensation benefits? – Studies have shown that there are numerous reasons.
Some barriers to seeking benefits include a sense of job insecurity. This can lead to a belief that if an injury is reported, the employer will terminate the employee. As experienced work injury compensation lawyers, we have the ability to properly advise the injured workers what to do in this situation and can even pursue a retaliatory discharge claim against the employer in Circuit Civil Court.
Many other workers do not press their work comp claim out of a simple lack of knowledge about their rights and ability to receive medical care paid for by their employer’s workers’ compensation insurance.
Further complicating the matter is an injured worker’s limited ability to understand English and a fear of getting others fired by asking for their help in reporting an injury or accident. These barriers are documented in numerous surveys of low-wage and immigrant workers who report being injured on the job and not filing workers’ compensation claims.
Work comp lawyers will tell you that workers who suffer repetitive trauma injuries are often left without work comp medical care as they are often not diagnosed until long after the exposure or seek medical care outside work comp never connecting the dots between their work activity and injuries.
Contact a Florida Workers’ Compensation Lawyer
If you have been hurt at work, do not delay in reporting your injury and hiring an experienced workers’ compensation lawyer immediately. Let us help you to protect the benefits to which you are entitled.
Contact Franks, Koenig & Neuwelt today for a free consultation.
