Is Your Worker’s Compensation Insurance Giving You the Cold Shoulder Over Shoulder Injuries?
If you do even moderate physical work, then shoulder injuries are likely extremely common in your workplace. However, whether you suffer from should pain to a serious injury that prevents you from using your entire arm, if the injury happens at work, you deserve compensation for your injury from the worker’s compensation system so you can heal without worrying about your livelihood.
Unfortunately, like many other work injuries, your workers compensation insurer may try to fight you on coverage to keep their own costs low. This means that they may deny your claim in hopes that you won’t appeal it, even though you have a solid case to do so.
Why Worker’s Compensation For Shoulder Injuries Is Denied?
Denial reasons for a shoulder injury or other injuries that should be covered by worker’s compensation can vary. In some cases, your worker’s compensation insurance may deny your claim because drugs or alcohol were found in your system. In these cases, it is completely in their right to do so as that automatically nullifies you from coverage. However, if the drugs were taken under a prescription, you may still have a case to appeal.
Another common reason for denial is if it is discovered that your shoulder injury didn’t technically happen at work. This could be that you were technically off the work site or doing something you were supposed to be doing for your job, like playing basketball at lunch, for example. This also includes situations where you were working for a co-worker as a favor, but weren’t supposed to be working or were off the clock. These situations are tricky, but incredibly common when it comes to claim denials.
However, while those situations for denial are within their right, sometimes worker’s compensation insurers may try to deny your benefits because it was found that you had a pre-existing that had contributed to the shoulder injury. However, you shouldn’t be fooled. Even if you had a pre-existing shoulder condition, and that was aggravated or contributed to the injury, you can still receive worker’s compensation for it.
If your claim was denied for that reason, you should contact a knowledgeable worker’s compensation attorney as soon as possible and begin the appeals process. Many claims adjusters are banking on the injured worker they denied just giving up, and many do because they don’t know that they are trying to pull the wool over their eyes. In order to prevent this denial or to have more of a case in your appeals process, you should consult with a reputable specialist on your shoulder injury. They will be able to tell if your job aggravated your pre-existing condition or if your shoulder injury had nothing to do with it to begin with.
Even if your claim has not yet been denied yet, you should still make contact with a worker’s compensation lawyer. By having an attorney at your side, not only will worker’s compensation claims adjuster be less likely to try their common tricks, since worker’s compensation lawyers have seen them all, but it shows that you are serious about your injury claim.
If you are in the Mankato area and have found that your worker’s compensation insurance is giving you the cold shoulder when it comes to paying you your benefits, contact us today. The Law Firm of Harvey & Carpenter have years of experience dealing with all the ways that worker’s compensation tries to get out of paying injured workers, and we are ready to make sure you get the benefits you need so you can heal in peace.