Originally Posted by lefthanded

I am afraid I can not whole-heartedly agree with Abasaki on this. Queen, if you have already been rated for the injury to your foot, unless it comes back ZERO, getting a lawyer just means 25-33% of your award goes right into the lawyer's pocket. Most states see the arm, leg, hand, foot, etc. as SCHEDULED members, with a set sum or set percentage of the body as a whole with regards to the final award of disability. Be a little more patient. . . . you are waiting for the normal flow of paperwork from the doctor's office (dictation, proofing, and mailing) to the claims adjudicator's desk to you. A lawyer, I am afraid, might slow that process to a snail's pace. . . they often have that effect! (I am not anti-lawyer, mind you, I just that I don't recommend them in every situation!)

For example, in Iowa a 100% loss of your foot might yield 150 weeks of your regular weekly benefit. . . . and a 25% disability then would yield 37.5 weeks. Suppose your weekly benefit is $265 . . . that would be a total benefit for your loss of just under $10,000.

In the state of Washington, where I live now, the benefit is set by the state, a flat dollar amount no matter what your wages, education, or benefit rate was. So a dancer and a secretary would get the same $$ figure for that 25% loss of the foot. I never liked that about WA, but that is how the legislature wrote it.

The law was not written to screw the worker, contrary to what you hear. It was, however, written to balance between kicking the injured worker to the curb (historically, until the turn of the last century) and retiring anyone who gets injured on the job with full wages! Every state's worker's compensation laws and benefits are different. but in each state they are written to attempt to give the injured worker a benefit to live on while healing and to address any permanent effects of the injury after their healing is completed.

Check out my mini-history and explanation of worker's compensation here: http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread44874.html

By the way, when a worker's compensation claim closes, it usually closes both disability and medical benefits. That is what the permanent disability is for . . . to cover the occasional lost day or need for an over-the-counter pain reliever. Only if you experience a worsening of your condition NOT caused by another new injury might you be able to file for reopening. For example, with a foot, in the future your bones in your foot must all be fused because the injury has caused degenerative changes that require fusion, then I wold think a reopening would be in order. However, there is usually a statute of limitations in reopening . . . seven years in some states, but varying state to state, I believe.