What benefits are you entitled to under Missouri workers’ compensation laws? Well, there’s a number of them and moreworkcomplawfirm.com explains it. I’m Gary Burger of Burger Law. Our website www.wordpress-1141749-3971949.cloudwaysapps.com also talks about it as one of the books we wrote, Missouri Workers’ Compensation. So, the Chapter 4 talks about the different types of benefits you’re entitled to. So, first of all, you’re entitled to medical payment benefits. Your employer has to pay your medical payments for the medical care you need as a result of your workers’ compensation injury.
Sometimes if you’re injured and you can’t work — you injured your shoulder really bad, your back, your knee, whatever it is — you can’t work for a period of time, you’re totally disabled but for a temporary amount of time, those are called Temporary Total Disability Payments. It’s two-thirds of your average weekly wages, and your employer has to pay that for you. The first three days that you’re off, they don’t have to pay, but if you’re off for more than 14 days, they have to retroactively pay those three days. They have to pay that until you’re back to work. We talk about light duty and going back to work in another video and it’s in another chapter.
Another benefit you’re entitled — and there’s a lot more that goes into TTD as well, and different ways your employer may try to stop paying that, but I don’t want to get into that in this video. There’s also partial disability payments, so if you are disabled but you are not 100% disabled, there are Temporary Partial Disability and Permanent Partial Disability money, payments that you are entitled to under the Missouri Workers’ Compensation Statute. We talked about that in the book, and those are calculated pursuant to the chart at the back of the book. It’s on the Missouri Workers’ Compensation Division’s website as well, but we talk about on this website as well as in the book.
So, you’re also entitled to, at the end of the case, permanent disability benefits, and that’s an area where you likely need a lawyer because the work comp adjuster, nurse case manager, lawyer and your employer don’t want you to talk to you about that and don’t want to get that for you, but at the end of your case when you’ve reached your maximum medical improvement and it’s as good as you’re going to get with the medical care that you’re going to have, you’re going to have a residual level of disability.
If you have shoulder surgery and you’re cut on it and your rotator cuff is repaired but you still can’t raise your arm, or your knee still hurts after a meniscus surgery, if you have a low back injury or surgery and you still have low back problems, or you don’t want to get the surgery but you’re still hurting, you have a Permanent Partial Disability or a Permanent Total Disability in those areas, and those are calculated. It depends on the percentage of disability you have times the number of weeks where you’re injured as we talk about. These are permanent disabilities. They’re not going away.
Now, they could be 100% where you can’t work at all, but usually that’s such on 50% disabled at the shoulder. I’m 20% disabled on my back which is a body as a whole. We take that times the number of the weeks of your average weekly wage for the 13 weeks that you worked prior to the injury times the number of weeks that is, times the disabilities, and the body as a whole is 400 weeks, and the different parts of the body are different weeks. I don’t need to bore you in this video with all of those. It’s on our website. It’s in the book.
So, if you have any questions about the disability benefits or the other benefits to which you are entitled because you were injured on the job and that’s all you need to prove. You don’t need to prove the employer did anything wrong. If you’re injured on the job, you’re entitled to these benefits and you should insist on full compensation for your injuries under the Workers’ Compensation Division. So, there are other areas in this website, moreworkcomplawfirm.com. I’m Gary Burger, my firm Burger Law. We have www.wordpress-1141749-3971949.cloudwaysapps.com. If we don’t answer your questions there, if you want to talk to us about your claim, we’ll talk to you for free at 314-542-2222, 866-599-2222 as well. Thank you.