Months have passed since the first outbreak of COVID-19 and frontline workers (grocery store clerks, nurses, doctors, EMTs, etc.) are still fighting for protective gear and compensation from their employers if they contract this dangerous disease while on the job.

Learn the connections between chronic pain, opioid painkillers and workers' comp professionals. See ways workers' comp professionals can be part of the solution. 

Is COVID-19 considered a work-related disease? Can I get coverage? Learn about the issues and challenges of obtaining workers’ compensation.

The emergence of the COVID-19 virus has impacted almost every aspect of our daily life, including the functioning of workers’ compensation claims.

Navigating a workers’ compensation claim is difficult enough during normal times. This already trying process has been made even more confusing, frustrating and scary during the current pandemic.

One of the biggest dilemmas currently facing injured workers’ is what to do if their employer (or their employer’s workers’ compensation insurance carrier) is trying to compel them to return to their job through the utilization of the WC-240 process.

Starting April 1, 2020, Workers’ Compensation Medicare Set Asides (WCMSAs) that are submitted to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will need to include a new Consent to Release form. This means the settling claimant must now sign off that they understand the WCMSA process and approve the contents of the submission.

Only nine states offer workers’ comp coverage for PTSD that isn’t accompanied by a physical injury. Ohio is on the right path to joining this exclusive group, but until it does, it’s among the majority of states that fail to recognize the seriousness of this condition and the disproportionate representation of first responders among workers diagnosed with PTSD.

Misclassification of workers transfers costs from employers, to the taxpayers and other businesses.  During these unprecedented times with the COVID-19 virus, we see another cost shifting burden emerge.  When employees are wrongly classified as independent contractors, and work dries up because of a health emergency such as COVID-19, unemployment benefits are unavailable to those workers.  

Just days after a few workers' compensation courts and commissions suggested that it would be business as usual during the coronavirus outbreak, some have reversed course, and hearings, meetings and conferences around the country have been canceled.

Because I am a native Spanish-speaker and understand the Hispanic culture, I relate well to my immigrant and undocumented clients. Once I develop some rapport with them, usually by the end of the first hour, they tell me about a co-worker who injured his/her back/shoulder/leg some time before their injury but did not report it. Almost always, the person sitting across from me asks me if “suing” the employer will get him/her fired. 

In March 2019, the Arizona Court of Appeals decided on a critical case in favor of the brave men and women who keep us safe: firefighters, first responders and police officers. The case specifically dealt with a police officer suffering from PTSD who was trying to get workers’ comp benefits. However, firefighters are also struggling to receive compensation for job-related cancers and other illnesses.