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Who Pays Workers’ Compensation Benefits In Baltimore Maryland?

Who Pays Workers’ Compensation Benefits In Baltimore Maryland?

The answer is easy, straightforward, and unhesitating. Your employer, or typically their insurance company, is responsible. Any seasoned workers’ compensation lawyer Baltimore work injury lawyer also knows that getting the benefits can be the opposite of easy, straightforward or unhesitating.

In theory, Maryland’s workers’ compensation system should operate automatically to support injured employees, but this often isn’t the case. Workers’ compensation benefits are routinely denied, requiring the help of a experienced Baltimore work injury lawyer like Eric T. Kirk. Each year, the Workers’ Compensation Commission handles thousands of cases in courtrooms statewide, many due to outright denial of claims rather than mere disputes over specific benefits.

A Baltimore Lawyer Who Handles Denied Workers’ Compensation Claims.

Claims are frequently denied when an employer fails to report the incident or complete necessary paperwork. Another common reason is the assertion that no injury occurred or that the injury is unrelated to the workplace. Often, insurance carriers argue the worker’s condition is due to a pre-existing health issue, known as an “idiopathic condition.” Insurance companies also claim that, while an accident may have happened, the injury didn’t occur within the “scope and course” of employment, or that the worker was an independent contractor, not an employee. Additionally, claims are sometimes denied under the umbrella of “employee misconduct,” such as a violation of safety rules or failing a drug test. While there are valid grounds to deny fraudulent claims, many legitimate ones are unfairly contested.

Attorney Eric T. Kirk will tell you.

Transcript

Your employer has to pay your workers’ compensation benefits. They’re either individually responsible, or, most employers secure workers’ compensation insurance that in turn is sometimes, and perhaps typically, overseen by a third party administrator. But certainly, your employer is responsible -through insurance or otherwise- for providing wage loss benefits and medical benefits. Now, the workers’ compensation law is supposed to be self executing. These benefits are supposed to be delivered to the injured worker without any prompting or any legal action. But the fact that we have a workers’ compensation litigation system and workers’ compensation commissioners that hear these claims suggests that -obviously- it is not a self executing system and sometimes litigation is required to secure these benefits.

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