Workers Compensation
| Pediatric Consultative Examination Reports |
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| A medical professional who has been tapped by the Social Security Administration (SSA) to conduct a consultative examination of a child must include certain information in his report. The SSA mandates that the report containing an assessment of the child's history, examination, and any laboratory findings be consistent with the format for reporting results used for complete internal medicine examinations. The report must be thorough and complete in order to provide the SSA with the necessary information to determine the nature, duration, and severity of the child's impairment as well as the limitations that such impairment places on the child. More... |
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| Contract of Hire |
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| For the workers' compensation obligation to be triggered, most state workers' compensation statutes require that the injured worker's employment be pursuant to a contract of hire. Such a contract, which can be either express or implied, is required because the workers' compensation system is based on reciprocal rights. The employee gains a measure of certainty in the recovery for his injury without resorting to litigation and the employer gains a cap on the amount that must be paid in the event an employee is injured. More... |
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| Social Security Benefits |
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| Though most states require that the injured worker be subject to a contract for hire to receive workers' compensation benefits, such benefits will usually be denied if the contract for hire is illegal. However, the illegality must arise from the nature of the employment and the worker's performance of illegal acts as opposed to the illegality that arises in the making of the contract itself. More... |
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| Second Injury Funds |
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| Oftentimes, an employee may be suffering from an injury or disability and then be subsequently injured while working for the employer. Generally, the states have addressed this issue by creating a second injury fund. For the most part, the employer is only responsible for the workers' compensation benefits attributable to the injury incurred while the employee was working for the employer. The second injury fund would pick up where the employer left off by paying the difference between what the employer pays and what the employee is entitled for the total effect of all of his injuries. More... |
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| Workers' Compensation Award Credit for Actual Earnings |
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| In some instances, an injured employee will return to his former position and resume making the same earnings as before the injury. When such an individual has received a workers' compensation benefit, the question arises whether the employer is entitled to a credit on the amount of benefits that were paid to the employee. If the employer paid the employee's wages, intending such wages to take the place of any benefit compensation, then the employer would be entitled to a credit. However, there is rarely direct evidence of the employer's intention in this regard. More... |
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