Immediately after a workplace incident, your main focus may be on getting treatment for yourself or even cleaning up the scene so that work can resume. It is only after you go to the doctor and find out how extensive your injuries are that you start to worry about your situation.
What may have seemed like a minor issue could turn out to be a tear to your tendon or a stable but still noteworthy fracture. You can find yourself facing weeks off of work and needing thousands of dollars in medical care.
That’s when you can turn to the Minnesota workers’ compensation system. Your employer carries workers’ compensation insurance on behalf of you and all of your co-workers. That coverage will help when you get hurt on the job or diagnosed with a work-acquired medical condition. What benefits are available through the Minnesota workers’ compensation program?
Medical benefits
Even if your employer offers good health insurance, you likely have some amount of patient responsibility whenever you receive care. You might need to meet a large deductible or to pay a flat percentage of your total treatment costs in the form of co-insurance.
You won’t have to worry about those expenses if you make a workers’ compensation claim because the coverage is complete. The program will pay for 100% of your necessary medical treatments.
Disability benefits
The only thing worse than needing to pay thousands of dollars for medical care is going months without any sort of income because of your medical issues. There are multiple forms of disability benefits paid through workers’ compensation in Minnesota.
These include temporary total disability for when you cannot work during your recovery and temporary partial disability for when you cannot do the same job and earn the same wages. There are also permanent disability benefits available if your injury will forever compromise what kind of work you can do.
Vocational rehabilitation benefits
For those with a permanent partial disability, simply receiving disability benefits might still leave them in a position of financial hardship, especially if they can only take entry-level in minimum-wage jobs. The state does offer benefits that can help train workers for better, higher-paying positions or help recover function to return to their old job after an injury through vocational rehabilitation benefits.
Understanding the workers’ compensation benefits potentially available can help you better recover after an injury on the job.
