Working With Vocational Rehabilitation Workers' Compensation Requirements
For workers afflicted with a permanent disability after a workplace injury, workers' compensation insurance provides several valuable benefits that go beyond the usual. In most cases, hurt workers can take advantage of medical treatment, a partial salary, and even job offers. A permanently disabled worker cannot return to their previous job, but they can, once again, produce income if they take full advantage of what is offered and, in some cases, required. Read on to find out more about one benefit requirement, vocational rehabilitation.
What is Vocational Rehabilitation?
As the name suggests, vocational rehabilitation focuses on job training that takes into account both the hurt worker's limitations and their skills. After you have been ruled to have a permanent disability, you may be referred to vocational rehabilitation services in your area. In most cases, vocational rehabilitation services are provided by your state or county government and may be available to people at all income and disability status. However, if you refuse the services of vocational rehabilitation, you may also be denied other workers' compensation benefits.
Evaluation and Planning
After meeting with a vocational rehabilitation counselor, a plan for moving forward is created. Often, hurt workers go through a series of tests to determine their career interests, skills, and abilities. The goal of vocational rehabilitation is to place you in a job that provides at least a partial income — it's not expected that you will earn the same as you did in your previous job.
What to Expect From Vocational Rehabilitation
In addition to testing for interests, disabled workers can expect the following, though services vary from place to place.
- Mental health services.
- Medical tests to determine the level of disability.
- Job search services like resume preparation, job referrals, and training programs that include job placement services.
Take Action and Be Assertive
Unfortunately, some disabled workers are pressured by the workers' compensation carrier to accept job training and jobs they are not suitable for. A lot more than job skills go into choosing jobs and you may balk at having job training and jobs chosen for you. You do have some control over these issues, but not if you wait too long. The time to understand vocational rehabilitation and what is expected of you is before your workers' compensation attorney negotiates your settlement. If you have your own ideas of how your life should be after you are paid your lump-sum workers' comp settlement, get an attorney on board early on in the process and get the benefits you want and need as a result of your workplace injury.
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