One of the first questions injured workers' frequently ask is “Will my employer fire me for getting hurt at work?” Answer – legally, they cannot. The North Carolina Retaliatory Employment Discharge Act (REDA) strictly forbids an employer from firing an injured worker for filing a workers'’ compensation claim. However, that doesn’t stop an injured [...]
On January 23, 2014, a young man, only 30 years old, fell to his death while working on a Raleigh construction site. According to news reports, the deceased was working on scaffolding on an apartment complex and fell approximately five stories. The North Carolina Department of Labor is investigating the accident. It’s unclear exactly what [...]
Will Medicare cover my future medical expenses for my workers'’ compensation injury if I settle my case? Yes, no, maybe…the answer to this question is always a tricky one. In fact, this is one of the most complex questions that will confront an injured worker at the time of settlement. Most settlements are final. Once [...]
Attendant care can be ordered by the treating physician for an injured worker when s/he needs some type of assistance with daily activities, like bathing, cooking, or help with walking. For example, the treating doctor could order two hours a day for light household assistance or more significant assistance (e.g. dressing and bathing) depending on [...]
What happens when a major journalism program runs a program without interviewing both sides? You get something like what “60 Minutes” aired in early October in “Disability, USA.” It’s one of the media’s favorite topics, “exposing” disability fraud on the part of the claimant. But how much truth is there to the allegations made on [...]
Lately there’s been a lot of buzz surrounding a drug known as ketamine. Some workers'’ compensation patients with chronic, neuropathic pain [i.e. Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) and Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD)] are lauding ketamine as a new wonder drug and a few pain clinics are now prescribing ketamine therapy to treat certain pain conditions [...]
Many workers'’ compensation claims arise when an employee is injured in an automobile accident while on the clock for the employer. In these cases, the injured worker sometimes has two claims - a personal injury claim and a workers'’ compensation claim. If another driver was at fault for the collision, it’s possible for the injured [...]
Last year, North Carolina saw breaking heat records at the end of June. The triple-digit temperatures peaked on June 29, 2012 when they reached 105 degrees at Raleigh Durham Airport. The heat was so bad that the interstates cracked under the extreme heat. According to the North Carolina Public Health records, there were approximately 431 [...]
North Carolina State Legislative Office Building This week Senate Bill 174 passed the House Committee with some changes that preserve the rights of injured workers' to have telephone hearings to get their benefits restarted and medical treatment expedited. For at least the past five years, injured workers' have had the right to have emergency medical [...]
Earlier this year, North Carolina OSHA released a report stating that job-related deaths were decreasing. In fact, the report stated there were only 35 workplace deaths in North Carolina in 2012. However, as we mentioned in our earlier blog from this year (North Carolina Workplace Deaths Lower in 2012), these statistics appeared artificially low. The [...]