General

The size of your paycheck that is. In Illinois, your Workers’ Compensation settlement or award is based on your average weekly wage for the 52 weeks before your injury.
Some states pay everyone the same based on the injury. But not Illinois, so make sure the amount the insurance company claims you were paid is correct.

Overtime can be included if it was required and worked on a regular basis.

You can also add wages from a second job if your employer was aware of the second job.

If something doesn’t look write about your wage calculations give me a call and I will review it with you.

The Social Security office for this region- Peoria, Bloomington, Champaign, Springfield- has sent out a notice explaining that electronic filing of appeals and documents will be highly encouraged.

Supposedly this will result in more efficient use of personnel and move disability cases faster. We shall see. The current internet system is cumbersome and frustrating to use. Hopefully, the push to use the internet for filing will lead to improvement.

This region has 6,325 Social Security disability cases pending at hearing level, with 8 judges. You can see the problem. The average time from hearing request to decision is 700 days.

The regional office is attempting to decide every case with a hearing request date of April 15, 2006 or older by the end of Fiscal Year 2008.

Let me know your experiences with your disability case.

If you have a Workers’ Compensation case and have also filed for Social Security Disability you must let your Workers’ Compensation attorney know about your disability claim.

The reason is that Workers’ Compensation settlement will count against your Social Security disability benefits and reduce your payment amounts unless special language is added to your settlement contract.

Your lawyer cannot add the language to your settlement contract unless she knows that you have filed for Social Security disability.

 If you need more information give me a call. I cover the Bloomington, Peoria, Champaign and Springfield, Illinois region.

There is no sense in winning your Social Security disability case and then not being able to collect the money because of your Workers’ Compensation settlement.

If you have a Workers’ Compensation case pending while your Social Security case is ongoing, you must tell your Workers’ Compensation lawyer about your Social Security disability case.

The reason is that your Workers’ Compensation settlement will count against your Social Security disability benefits and reduce your payment amounts unless special language is added to your settlement contract.

Your lawyer cannot add the language to your settlement contract unless she knows that you have filed for Social Security disability.

If your lawyer wants to know the specific language needed have them contact me.

There is no sense in winning your Social Security disability case and then not being able to collect the money because of your Workers’ Compensation settlement.

There are several reasons the Workers’ Compensation insurance company will not pay for a work injury.

If your employer tells them there was no accident reported they will often refuse to pay.

If your medical records do not provide a history of being injured on the job they will refuse to pay.

If your employer claims to have witnesses who know you were not hurt on the job, or that you told someone you were injured outside of work they will refuse to pay.

If you were injured in the parking lot there are some cases in Illinois that provide, depending on the circumstances, you may not be entitled to compensation.

If the Workers’ Compensation insurance company refuses to pay you should contact an attorney and request a hearing. This will force the insurance company to hire an attorney and decide whether to defend the case at hearing, or pay you.