What Is Living Maintenance Comp for Injured Workers in Ohio?

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How to Get Injured Worker Support During Vocational Rehabilitation

When you try to make the transition back to work after a life-altering job injury, do you have to give up the workers’ compensation benefits that have kept you financially afloat?

After all, you don’t know how your return to the workforce will go. You don’t know if your injury will flare up again. You don’t want to lose crucial medical treatment coverage and payment for lost wages only to find yourself still sidelined by your injury.

Rest assured, there is an option. When you’re undergoing a vocational rehabilitation plan under Ohio workers’ compensation, you can receive a benefit called “living maintenance compensation (LM).”

Living maintenance compensation continues workers’ compensation payments, generally for up to six months, as you undergo career counseling and training. It eases your way to the next chapter in work and life.

But as with many types of benefits you can receive on workers’ compensation in Ohio, your employer or even the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (BWC) may not be up front about the full amount available to you.

Looking to get back on the job? Talk to the Ohio workers’ compensation lawyers at Horenstein, Nicholson & Blumenthal (HNB) to make sure you get the maximum injured worker support.

HNB lawyers have secured over $500,000,000.00 in awards, benefits and settlements for our injury clients over the past 40 years.

Hard-working Ohioans say, “Helping me, that’s HNB.”

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Compensation During Recovery: When Do You Get Living Maintenance?

To get LM compensation, the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation says you must be actively undergoing vocational rehabilitation.

Vocational rehabilitation is a workers’ compensation benefit meant to help you get reoriented to working.

The details of vocational rehabilitation plans are different for every individual.

Plans can include occupational and physical therapy to relearn work-related tasks. It can include career counseling to guide your path forward. It can include gradually returning to work, job training, job placement services and more.

LM payments can be as much as the Temporary Total Disability Compensation (TTDC) wage replacement you received while out of work because of your job injury.

If you have to stop vocational rehabilitation and can’t return to work because of the medical conditions originally caused by your job, the BWC says other benefits you’re entitled to under workers’ compensation will be restored.

But here’s the issue: Vocational rehabilitation is often a tool for the BWC or your employer to get you off workers’ compensation benefits, so they can save themselves money.

You need to be careful about what they push you to do, and whether they’re truly giving you all the benefits you deserve.

Consult with an HNB workers’ compensation lawyer to protect your rights, your compensation during recovery and your economic security.

We help people in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and every corner of Ohio. Your initial consultation is always free.

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What if You’re Back at Work, But Can’t Earn as Much as Before Your Injury?

Another form of workers’ compensation in Ohio is for people who are back at work but earning less than before their job injuries, and people who haven’t been able to find a job even though a doctor cleared them to work again.

It’s called wage loss compensation. And there’s a version of it for people who underwent vocational rehabilitation that’s called living maintenance wage loss.

Wage loss compensation provides payments to bridge the gap in your earnings if your injury changed the kind of job you can do, leaving you earning less than what you averaged in the year before your injury.

Wage loss compensation also helps when you’re applying for jobs, trying to get back to work after an injury or occupational illness—and you can document your efforts to get a job—but you remain out of work.

These benefits last for different periods of time.

Up to 200 weeks for a person working but earning less
Up to 52 weeks for a person looking for work

Whether you’re at the point where you need living maintenance compensation or wage loss compensation, talk to our Ohio workers’ compensation attorneys to make sure you get what’s right.

We can make sure you apply for the right benefits and send the right supporting information.

Also talk to us to avoid getting shortchanged on benefits, or having your benefits cut off prematurely—like if your employer or the BWC says you can go back to work, but you know you can’t.

You have every right to receive the fullest compensation during recovery that you can get—and the strongest foundation for your future.

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