If you've been injured in a workplace injury, compensation is hardly a simple subject. The situation needs to be investigated to not only deliver the right medical care and compensation to you, but to find the true cause of the problem and how to stop it from happening in the future. Even if your injury happened at your workplace, you should consider every aspect of your incident before jumping on any compensation offers. Take a look at a few angles of injury incidents to figure out what you could be entitled to from different sources.

Workers Compensation Benefit Options

Every state is different when it comes to workers compensation benefits, but they all have a few general features. If you were injured at work at no fault of your own, you're entitled to medical care relevant to your injury and a percentage of your pay for the duration of your injury. In South Carolina (SC), for example, workers can look forward to 66 2/3% of their average weekly pay in compensation, but not exceeding the average weekly wage in SC.

In a standard scenario, this means that'll you'll get immediate medical care, continued care, physical therapy, medication and other forms of medical assistance until you've recovered enough to work again. Your doctor will decide whether you're ready to return to work, but you're encouraged to report any continued pain or disability if work proves difficult because of your injury.

The partial pay during your injury can be a problem, especially if you were barely making ends meet with your full pay. This is where you may need a workers compensation attorney to negotiate your compensation. Although there may be financial tests to make sure that you're living within your means and still in need of additional compensation, it's better to at least attempt better compensation terms than to risk additional financial suffering because of your injury.

Negotiations can include higher pay, services such as grocery assistance to offset costs or childcare assistance. Being creative with negotiations can yield many results, but it takes an experienced lawyer to bring realistic results to fruition.

Can Other Compensation Systems Help?

Your injury could have been caused by something other than your workplace, but you should avoid giving state workers compensation officials reasons to not help you. Before discussing any other possible injury causes, make sure to speak with a lawyer and avoid admitting possible fault for anything.

If the injury was caused by a faulty piece of equipment from a specific manufacturer, you and your employer may have a legal claim against that manufacturer. The same goes for safety equipment that failed to protect you and/or other workers from harm, or failures in your workplace's construction.

At a more personal level, were you injured because of a previous injury? Do you have chronic pain or disabilities from previous events that lead to your current predicament. Weakness from a damaged leg or disorientation from head injuries could have played a part in the current incident. That said, such admission could shift the responsibility to you, or at least away from workers compensation and your employer.

That's why it's important to speak with an attorney first. Your attorney can lay the groundwork for creating historical claims against previous employers that could have caused old injuries, Veterans Affairs (VA) disability claims if military injuries are affecting your livelihood or other forms of past compensation. Contact a workers compensation attorney to discuss your options. Contact a business, such as The Reed Noble Law Firm PLLC, for more information.     

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