After sustaining a workplace injury, you will likely seek workers’ compensation benefits from your employer. How much of those benefits you are entitled to will depend on the severity of your injury and how much it prevents you from working.
To calculate what you should receive in workers’ compensation, adjusters and insurers use impairment ratings that describe your diminished ability to work. A workers’ compensation attorney can help you with a Van Nuys assessment of impairment ratings based on your injury.
When you seek medical treatment for a workplace injury, your doctor will make an initial evaluation. The doctor takes into account the specific injury, its location, and its effects to estimate diminished earning capacity, usually expressed as a percentage and determined using guidelines from the American Medical Association.
According to the state’s labor regulations, a doctor first assigns a disability code to the injury before adjusting the rating based on different factors. The calculation is adjusted according to your occupation, recognizing that certain injuries may impact a particular job or role more than others, and then for your age.
After the calculation is complete, the extent of your injury will be classified with a percentage between 0 and 100 percent, 100 percent meaning you have a permanent disability. Based on this percentage, an adjuster and your employer’s insurance can determine the benefits you will receive to cover lost income and how long those benefits will last.
However, the process depends on a doctor’s judgment and may not accurately describe your circumstances. Since your benefits depend on your doctor’s evaluation, an assessment of impairment ratings by a Van Nuys attorney can be helpful.
As your representative, an attorney can provide crucial assistance by making sure that your doctor accurately generates an impairment rating. As your doctor first evaluates the injury and then adjusts your rating, there is no guarantee that they will follow state regulations for creating an impairment rating.
For example, your doctor might misdiagnose the injury or its severity at first and only realize later how much damage has been done or how affected you will be. Your doctor might also use an improper occupation group to adjust for how physical the demands of your job may be, which could impact your rating and underestimate your disability.
Your Van Nuys attorney can ensure that any mistakes are caught by conducting a thorough assessment of your impairment rating. An experienced lawyer could review the doctor’s evaluation and see if they used their best judgment in describing your injury in a way that ensures you receive your benefits.
You might even find that an insurer might try to argue that your impairment rating is too high in order to reduce benefits or cut them off after a certain amount of time. To challenge these efforts, your legal representation could demonstrate that the impairment rating was accurately created or that it should be even higher, depending on your particular case.
Navigating the complexities of a Van Nuys assessment of impairment ratings and the workers’ compensation process is not something you have to do on your own. With the help of an attorney, you can better understand or challenge your assessment of impairment ratings. At Glauber Berenson Vego, our lawyers have the necessary expertise and experience to protect your benefits. Call us today for a consultation.
