When you are seeking workers’ compensation benefits in Cleveland, you likely want to know how long you will be eligible to receive benefits. In other words, you might be wondering whether your benefits will last for a few weeks, a few months, or several years before they run out.
I routinely assist injured workers in Cleveland with workers’ compensation claims, and I can tell you that the duration of your workers’ comp benefits depends on a number of different factors, including the type and severity of the injury. I will tell you more about how the duration of workers’ comp benefits is determined according to the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (BWC).
Is Your Injury Temporary or Permanent, and is it Partial or Total?
The first thing you will need to know in order to understand how the BWC will determine the duration of your workers’ compensation benefits is whether your injury is temporary or permanent. Then, you will need to know whether your injury is partial (meaning that you can return to work in some capacity) or total (meaning that you cannot return to work in any capacity either for a particular amount of time or permanently).
Here are the different types of benefits based on the factors I just outlined above:
- Temporary total disability benefits: You can receive up to 72% of your wages earned before the injury (with certain exceptions for the statewide average weekly wage, or SAWW, if you were a high earner), and then you will receive two-thirds of your wages earned before the injury as soon as 12 weeks are up. Ohio will allow you to continue receiving temporary total disability benefits up to one of the following points: once you are able to return to work, or once your doctor says you have reached maximum medical improvement (meaning that you cannot get any better than you are), or 200 weeks are up.
- Temporary partial disability benefits, or “wage loss” benefits: When you have a temporary partial disability, you can return to work in some capacity, but not in the full capacity that you would have been able to do before the injury. These kinds of workers’ compensation benefits are known as wage loss benefits in Ohio. Basically, you can receive two-third of the difference between the wages you earned before the injury and the wages you are earning currently (while working in a partial capacity, or doing light duty at work). Like temporary total disability, you can receive these benefits for up to 200 weeks in most cases.
When you have a permanent disability, either partial or total, the duration of your benefits is based on a wage loss schedule. Essentially, each body part or type of disability has a maximum benefit duration. And if your disability is a partial one, the duration can also be based on the percentage of your disability.
Contact Me for Information About Workers’ Compensation Benefits
I also want to emphasize that it is extremely important to have an experienced Cleveland workers’ compensation lawyer on your side if you are seeking benefits. The BWC can deny benefits for a variety of reasons, and I can help to ensure you get the benefits you need and deserve. I’ll Make Them Pay!® Call me on the phone today at 877.944.4373 to learn more.
