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Have You Been Injured at Work in Iowa?

By Corey Walker

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 12Mar2010 Word count: 696 Viewed: 252 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

We understand that dealing with a work injury claim can be frustrating and confusing. There are many complex laws that you and you're employer should be following. Many kinds of injuries are covered by your employer's workers' compensation insurance policy. If you can prove that your condition has been made worse, aggravated, accelerated by your work activities it should still be considered work related even if you had a prior condition.

If you are injured at work and require treatment for your injury your employer will likely send you to a doctor of their choice. They are supposed to pick a provider that is reasonably suited to treat your injury. If for some reason you do not like the doctor they choose you can ask for alternate medical care. If your employer or their insurance company does not allow alternate care, you can file a petition for alternate medical care with the workers' compensation commissioner. However, keep in mind that there are very specific legal requirements for you to be successful in a petition for alternative medical care and you should talk to an attorney about those. Also, you are entitled to a second opinion if the doctor your employer sends you to gives you an impairment rating that you think is low. If this happens you can chose the doctor you want to see for a second opinion at your employer's expense. Once again, it is a good idea to talk to an attorney about who you should see for a second opinion.

Aside from getting proper medical care there are numerous benefits an injured worker should be receiving under the Iowa Code. If you have been hurt at work you should be reimbursed for any mileage expenses you have incurred due doctor appointments, physical therapy treatments, or even going to the pharmacy to pick up your medication. Also, if you are required to miss work to attend any kind of appointment related to your work injury than your employer needs to be paying your for the time you missed from work, you should not have to use your personal time for such absences.

In addition, if you are not able to work due to your injury or not able to work your normal hours, then you should receive weekly benefits due to your work injury. The amount you receive is called your rate. Your workers' compensation rate is based upon your average earnings prior to the work injury. The rate for an injured Iowa who is paid on an hourly basis would be figured based on their average of 13 weeks of pay for weeks that are considered a customary week. For example, if you missed two days of work one week while on vacation then that week may be skipped. Other factors such as marital status and number of exemptions determine what your weekly rate will be. Your average earnings are then multiplied by 80% of your spendable weekly earnings which can be found in a chart provided by the Iowa Workers' Compensation Commissioner. Go to http://www.iowaworkforce.org/wc/publications.htm and look for the Iowa Workers' Compensation Manual. This amount changes every year so it will vary depending on when you were injured.

Your rate is very important because it determines how much compensation you receive. In our experience in dealing with injured workers' rates, in about half of our cases the worker's compensation rate being paid by the employer/insurance company is wrong. We ensure that our clients are being paid the proper rate by checking it ourselves. For example, if a client hires one of our attorneys and is being paid $252.00 a week at the time, our attorney will double check to make sure that amount is correct. If the attorney were to find that the client's actual rate is $315.00 then that means the insurance company has been paying $63 less than it should be. You're probably thinking that isn't much, but if you have been receiving benefits for the last 15 weeks then the insurance company owes you $945.00 due to underpayment for the last 15 weeks, every tiny mistake made in your case can add up.

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