Basic Training: Workers Compensation for Life Time Disabilities in Georgia
Workers’ Compensation provides supplementary income, medical benefits, and rehabilitation to employees who sustain workplace injuries or occupational illness. In Georgia, employers with more than 3 workers, including regular part-time workers, must have workers’ compensation insurance. Under the law, employers failing to provide compensation are guilty of a misdemeanor.
In the case of a successful claim, the insurance company pays the medical bills and compensates for the injured employee’s lost wages. While the issue is resolved between the concerned parties, an employment attorney may become a part of the process in certain situations. For instance, if the employer lacks insurance coverage or an employee files a lawsuit against the employer.
Georgia law provides benefits to employees on a temporary or lifetime basis, depending on the nature of workplace injury or illness. In the previous articles, you read about the potential liabilities related to temporary disabilities at the workplace. This article addresses the circumstances that lead to lifetime benefits for workers.
Note: The article does not constitute legal advice, nor does is a substitute for reading the statute.
Eligibility for Lifetime Income Benefits under Georgia Workers’ Compensation Plan
Workplace injuries do affect not only health but also interrupt employees’ finances. However, workers receive weekly income benefits, up to the allotted caps, for permanent partial disabilities. The employee receives income benefits until their medical condition improves or up to 400 weeks from the date of injury.
Under Georgia’s workers’ compensation laws, employees with catastrophic injuries, have an exception. The law allows such employees to receive income benefits for a lifetime. However, an employee must provide medical evidence to support the claim and approval of lifetime income benefits.
Catastrophic Injuries
According to the employee handbook of the Georgia State Board of Workers’ compensation, the eligibility for receiving income benefits for the rest of an employee’s life. An injury is catastrophic in nature if it prevents the employee from performing their duty or other available work “within the national economy.”
Some injuries are serious to the extreme that the employee cannot recover or go back to work in any capacity. These injuries have a long-term effect on the victim’s life; they may need constant supervision for the rest of their life.
In addition, catastrophic injuries can put the employee’s family in a financial crisis because of lifetime rehabilitation and medical expenses. Injuries that are catastrophic in nature include:
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Neurological disorders and spinal cord injuries that lead to paralysis.
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Loss of a limb, hand, or arm due to an accident at the workplace
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Severe head or brain injury
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Eye injury resulting in total or industrial vision loss
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Severe burns over 25% of the body or burn injuries on 5% of the face or hands
In addition to these, any severe injury sustained at the workplace that prevents an employee from doing any kind of work is catastrophic.
Calculation of Lifetime Income Benefits
It is important to know that Georgia’s workers’ compensation laws do not include the term “Lifetime income benefits.” Rather, the law covers such benefits in the temporary total disability (TTD) category.
Before we delve into the details of lifetime income benefits, let’s quickly recap the income benefits for temporary total disability.
Income benefits for Catastrophic Injuries
When an employee receives a catastrophic injury, they can file for lifetime compensation. Workers’ compensation law of Georgia stipulates that catastrophically an injured employee will receive TTD until they show “change in condition for better.”
If the Georgia State Board of Workers’ Compensation determines an employee’s injury as catastrophic, and the employer agrees to the claim, the employee will receive the benefits for an indefinite time. It is important to know that there is no cap on temporary total disability and income benefits a claimant receives for the rest of her life.
In addition to income and temporary total benefits, employers have to provide immediate and full rehabilitation services to the employee injured on the job. Catastrophically injured employees are also eligible for lifetime vocational rehabilitative services and medical benefits.
Settlement of Workers’ Compensation Claims
Employers can ask the claimants to provide medical evidence of their catastrophic injuries. The employee must prove that she cannot work at all. The employer may either pay a lump sum or agree to pay weekly benefits to the catastrophic employee for lifetime.
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