How Do I Get Paid?
I wanted to talk about a topic that came up while I was talking to a client yesterday. The question is, if I was in a work injury, do I get paid? If I get hurt at work, how do I get paid? Do I get paid?
It's a common question and I'm going to give you a quick and short answer. The short answer is, if you get hurt and you're an employee, then you're covered under workers comp. Workers comp is a bunch of Illinois law. Well it's a big Illinois law that covers what an employer owes to an employee if they get hurt while they're working.
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Entitled To Two-Thirds Of Your Pay
One of the things you're entitled to is, you're entitled to two-thirds of your pay if you're off with a doctor's note. The doctor's note is an important part of it. I always tell my clients, if you get hurt at work, you got to see a doctor and you got to get an off work note. If you don't plan on going in. There's not much wiggle room for somebody saying "well I'm an adult, I knew I couldn't work". Well the problem is the act requires an actual doctor's note. So that's what's required and that's what you need to do.
So yes, you're technically entitled to be paid two-thirds of your pay while you're off work. They don't withhold payroll taxes, so what you take home is almost identical to what you were taking home before you got hurt. Except, just because they're supposed to pay you doesn't mean they actually pay you.
Two Categories Insurance Companies Refuse To Pay
There's two categories of situations where they refuse to pay you. I would say it's about 50-50. Although I'm suspicious about insurance companies because all they like to do is save money. They don't really care about human beings.
Clerical Error
One is a clerical error or a communication error. Somebody was on vacation, came back from vacation, didn't see a letter, didn't see a doctor's work note. Like I said before, we have to send them a doctor's note. They have to have a doctor's note saying you're off work and then they'll institute TTD. Or they may have come back from vacation or they may have been assigned 20 new files and they haven't read yours yet. So there's a lottery and they just haven't instituted TTD. They set it up in a computer system and that's how you get paid. That's the easy thing for me to fix when I get involved in a case.
The first thing I do is call the insurance company, find out who the adjuster is, find out what they need. Sometimes it's "just give me a day, let me look at it" sometimes it's "we never got the off work note". Whatever the problem is, I fix it and that's the most common way for me to get TTD going for a client.
They Want To Fight The Case
The second category is more of a concern. The second category is, what happens if you have an off work note and they just want to fight the case. They think you didn't really get hurt at work or they think your doctor is a scammer. Or they think you're exaggerating the injury because you're mad about something. Like you didn't get a promotion or whatever it is. Or they reprimanded you for being late so you're claiming an injury as revenge. Which is ridiculous. I've never represented anybody who ever did that.
They get these ideas in their head and they decide to take a defense posture on the case. That means they're going to fight all the way. Now sometimes I can get them on the phone and schmooze them. Sometimes I'm like "okay fine, hire a lawyer, we'll go in front of the arbitrator". The lawyer on the other side for the company, I'll call him up and say "look here's what's going on, I think we got off on the wrong foot, why don't you talk to your people and send my clients some money?". It works sometimes.
19B/19B1 Petition
If all else fails, we have to do a 19b or a 19b1 petition. It is an emergency petition that, you go in front of the judge and you tell the judge your side. They say their side, you might have to do a hearing actually, where you approve you put the doctor's note and the medical records into evidence. And the judge makes a decision about whether you're owed TTD or not.
Those are the options. The problem is, it's really hard to get in front of a judge quickly. It usually takes six weeks to get in front of a judge or longer. Sometimes we get lucky and we can do it quicker, other times we can't. That's sort of the way it works. But are you entitled to get paid while you're off work if you have a work injury? If you're an employee Illinois workers comp law says that the answer is yes.
I hope that clarifies and fills in some information for you.
