Workers' compensation benefits in Vermont are important for the injured worker to understand. Are you being treated right? Are your rights being honored?

Your employer and the workers' comp insurer are supposed to help you on the road to recovery and sometimes help you with the rest of your career. To make things happen, or to make things happen right, you probably need a lawyer. What kind of benefits should be paid? How long do my benefits last? Should I settle?

A. Wage Benefits Workers' comp has to mail you a check, every week, for 2/3 of your average weekly wage. They keep mailing you a check as long as you are disabled and the doctor reasonably expects you to get better.

B. Medical Expense Benefits Workers' comp has to pay your doctor bills and prescriptions. They have to pay forever as long as it's for the injury. (Unless you settle out). There's never a deductible. There are no co-pays. They can't tell you to use your other insurance. Vermont's workers' compensation statute 21 V.S.A. Section 640 requires the employer and its insurance company to " . . . furnish reasonable surgical, medical, and nursing service and supplies ... " to an injured employee, including prescriptions. The insurer may also have to pay for "assistive devices and modifications to vehicles and residences."

C. Vocational Rehabilitation Benefits Workers' comp might have to offer a person trained in vocational rehabilitation, to help you return to roughly the same pay.

D. Permanent Partial Disability Benefits Workers' comp has to pay you more if a physician determines that you have a permanent impairment, according to a publication known as the American Medical Association Guides to the Evaluation to Permanent Impairment. The amount payable depends upon the percentage of impairment in the opinion of the physician(s).

E. Permanent Total Disability Benefits If your work injury leaves you permanently unable to do even light duty work without interruption, you may qualify for permanent total (not partial) disability. A weekly check may be owed for life by the workers' comp insurer. Often a lump sum settlement is advisable. In other words, settlement of the present cash value of those future weekly checks is wise, especially if you also receive Social Security Disability benefits.

F. Choice of Physician You choose your own physician under Vermont Department of Labor Rule 12.1200. The insurance company can't make you go and get treatment with someone you never heard of if you don't want to. All they can do as far as a doctor is once in a while tell you to show up for an "independent medical exam" at a reasonable place by a doctor that they hire.

G. Mileage Reimbursement Vermont Department of Labor Rule 12.2000 allows you to get reimbursed for mileage to medical appointments if it's "beyond the distance normally traveled to the workplace."

H. Third Party Claim You might be able to claim a whole lot more money for your losses than just workers' comp, if someone other than your employer was careless and caused your injury (referred to as "third party claim"). In such a case, you can claim civil damages that you can't get in workers' compensation. See "Civil Damages"

I. Employer is Forbidden to Retaliate for Workers' Compensation Your employer can't fire you or treat you badly simply because they are mad about your claim for workers' comp. The law, 21 V.S.A. Section 710 says in part: "(b) No person shall discharge or discriminate against an employee from employment because such employee asserted a claim for benefits under this chapter or under the law of any state or under the United States." Where that statute is violated, the employee is permitted to sue the employer, according to the Vermont Supreme Court’s 1995 decision in Murray v. St. Michael’s College.