Call now for a free initial consultation
Phone: 717-233-4160

Call now for a free initial consultation

Phone: 717-233-4160

You Need Strong Advocates During Times Of Legal Turmoil

You Need Strong Advocates During Times Of Legal Turmoil

Were Your Workers’ Compensation Benefits Cut Off?

If your workers’ compensation benefits are being cut off, unjustly reduced to partial benefits or paid off in a lump sum, it is important to fight for your legal rights. At Law Office of Richard F. Maffett, we represent individuals to help prevent the insurance company from trying to cut off or modify their workers’ compensation benefits. We provide thorough and personal attention to every case, ensuring your concerns are addressed and you are kept abreast of developments in your case at every step. Our goals are to provide strong representation to you at every step and to help you maintain benefits for your medical bills and lost wages.

Work comp benefits being cut off? Contact us today for a free initial consultation with an experienced lawyer. We promptly return all messages.

Insurance Companies Will Try To Say You Have Recovered Even When You Have Not

Workers’ compensation disputes can involve an attempt by the insurance company for termination or modification of benefits. The employer’s insurance company will request that an injured worker see a doctor for an “independent medical exam.” This is a stacked deck, since the doctor is chosen by the insurance company. Most often, this results in a medical opinion in the insurance company’s favor.

  • Termination — If the insurance company doctor finds that a claimant is fully recovered from the work injury, the insurance company will file a petition to try to make his or her workers’ compensation benefits stop. This scenario often involves a disagreement between the insurance company’s doctor and the individual’s treating doctor, and which medical evidence will be believed by the court. As an experienced Harrisburg workers’ compensation disputes attorney, Richard Maffett will show that your treating doctor’s medical evidence is most credible.
  • Modification — An employer’s insurance company will try to show that alternative work is available to an injured worker. To do this, it may hire a vocational expert to evaluate what type of work the individual receiving benefits can do. This evaluation is often a labor market survey. As a result, the insurance company produces a list of jobs that the individual can do within his or her medical limits. Based on that, the insurance company will file a petition to ask that benefits are modified from total to partial benefits, often at a drastically reduced rate. In many cases, the list prepared by the vocational expert encompasses “dummy jobs” or jobs that are not within a person’s limitations or are not readily available. Attorney Maffett will bring these discrepancies to light and further prove you require the maximum level of benefits.

The insurance company may also ask a claimant to submit to an impairment rating. The degree of impairment is determined using the AMA Guides To The Evaluation Of Permanent Impairment. If the impairment rating is less than 50 percent, the claimant’s status can be changed to partial disability, meaning that instead of indefinite benefits, he or she can receive benefits for a maximum of 500 weeks. Attorney Maffett will bring any discrepancies in the impairment rating to light. He will also help obtain medical evidence from your treating doctor to challenge whether the impairment rating is appropriate.

This Is Not The End Of The Road. Call Us For Help.

For a free initial consultation, call us today at 717-233-4160. Or, if you prefer to send an email, you may do so using our secure online form. Workers’ compensation cases are billed on contingency, which means we don’t collect unless you are compensated.

Practice Areas

Criminal - State & Federal

Criminal – State & Federal

Motor Vehicle Issues

Motor Vehicle Issues

Worker's Compensation / Workplace Accidents

Workers’ Compensation/ Workplace Accidents

Automobile, Truck & Motorcycle Accidents

Automobile, Truck & Motorcycle Accidents

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Peer Review Rated | For Ethical Standards & Legal Ability | AV | Preeminent | Martindale-Hubbell from LexisNexis