Workers’ compensation attorneys often represent people who suffer back and neck injuries and who have been diagnosed with a herniated or bulging disc.
There are two basic issues that most clients face when it comes to herniated or bulging disc injuries and workers’ compensation claims:
1. Receiving Medical Treatment:
Sometimes the doctor will recommend treatment for a herniated or bulging disc, but your employer or its workers’ compensation insurance provider will not approve it. Your employer or its insurance company may cite degenerative disc diseases, arthritis, disc deterioration, or some other pre-existing condition and state that since the condition was pre-existing they are not responsible.
However, New Jersey workers’ compensation law does not deny you benefits because you have a preexisting condition. Many people who are injured at work have preexisting conditions. But, they may not have been experiencing problems with those conditions until they were injured. Even if they were having problems, the problems may have only gotten worse because of a work-related accident.
If you have a preexisting injury in your neck or back and then suffered an injury that made it worse, or even required you to undergo treatment or surgery for that preexisting condition, your employer or its workers’ compensation insurance provider should be responsible.
2. Unable or Limited in Their Ability to Work:
Often, if a person’s job is physically demanding, requires a lot of lifting, bending, sitting, or standing for long periods of time, they may have difficulty working with a herniated or bulging disc injury.
If you are unable to work due to your injury, or if the doctor puts you on light duty restrictions, but your employer does not have any job you can perform, you should probably be receiving Temporary Disability Benefits from your employer or its workers’ compensation insurance provider. Temporary Disability Benefits benefits are wage replacement benefits that you receive when you are out of work due to a work-related injury.
If you are able to do some work, but you are unable to earn as much as you did before the injury, you should probably be receiving partial wage replacement benefits. This is New Jersey’s way of compensating you when you’re losing money because you are unable to earn as much money because of a work-related injury.
Though there are other issues that crop upon from time to time, these are two of the main issues workers encounter when dealing with workers’ compensation benefits for a herniated or bulging disc injuries.
If you have further questions regarding workers’ compensation for a herniated or bulging disc injury, or any other issues with your workers’ compensation claim, contact us and let us help you find a workers’ compensation attorney that best suits your needs.