Personal Attorney for Heart and Lung Act Rights

Why My Own Attorney for Heart and Lung Act Rights

Discussing your claim with a world-wise attorney where you may have a Heart and Lung Act claim is critical to getting you the full benefits you deserve, especially for serious, career-affecting injuries. And where you are getting Heart and Lung Act benefits, the costs of involving a personal attorney will fall to your employer!

Interplay with Workers Compensation

When you get Heart and Lung Act (HLA) wage loss benefits, these are funded in part by the less generous (but still very valuable) Workers Compensation Act benefits afforded to all Pennsylvania employees who suffer recognized work injuries. The Workers Compensation benefit checks are directed to your employer by the workers compensation carrier or third party administrator, while your employer must pay you the higher full Heart and Lung Act benefits during a qualifying disability. Medical billing rights, and important matters such as the scope and description of your recognized work injury, are also controlled by the Workers Compensation Act. And while your employer and insurance administrator may want to keep this under wraps, understanding the interplay between the two Acts can give you huge advantages in the management of your injury claim.

Medical Support for Ongoing Disability

One advantage of consulting with a personal attorney who is savvy in the ways of workers compensation and its interplay with HLA rights is much improved access to stronger medical support for your claim -- whether to protect you from a premature push back to work in light duty or full duty, or to avoid the termination of Heart and Lung Act benefits on a too-soon claim of "permanency" for a serious injury, or to prevent your being railroaded into accepting a disability pension without first cashing in on a very substantial lump sum settlement of your valuable Workers Compensation Act rights. Our office can help you find supportive medical providers. More than that, because employers and insurance administrators nearly always play games to artificially limit work injury claims, this presents opportunities to raise litigation in the workers compensation forum, to your great advantage in the Heart and Lung Act forum. Among those advantages: workers compensation litigation generally involves taking formal trial testimony from medical providers, which can help preserve or advance your HLA rights, but which is costly because expert medical witnesses charge thousands in deposition fees. When we take on representation as your personal attorneys for your claim, the costs for such medical testimony are covered by our office -- and eventually repaid to us by the employer's insurance so long as we prevail. This can afford an opportunity to get focused testimony from a medical provider in the workers compensation forum, under very controlled circumstances. The doctor is well paid for his or her time, devotes time to in-person preparation with your personal attorney, and is primed to serve as strongly as possible as your medical advocate. This can give you far better support -- stronger, more nuanced and more compelling -- than you might otherwise have available for a Heart and Lung Act adjudication. This can do much more than level the playing field, since your employer generally has more advantages in the Heart and Lung Act forum than is true in the Workers Compensation forum.

Personal Attorney Help at No Cost to You

A Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court case dating to 2010 clearly established that where an injured worker is receiving Heart and Lung Act benefits, his or her attorneys fees for successful litigation of related rights in the Workers Compensation forum (including fights to block your employer from stopping your benefits or sending you back to work while you are still disabled) are effectively paid strictly by the employer. That is, when we act as your personal attorney and we succeed in expanding, protecting or prolonging your rights in the Workers Compensation courts -- whether for extended Heart and Lung Act wage loss benefits, expansion of your recognized injury to include broader diagnoses or additional elements, protection against a premature "return to work" push by the employer or any other important issue giving you greater control over your own fate -- we take a "contingent fee" only when we win rights for you and only from the "workers compensation" component of your Heart and Lung Act payments. And since that "workers compensation" component is something you never see (it is paid by the responsible insurance entity directly to the your employer to defray the higher costs of Heart and Lung Act salary replacement), our attorneys fee merely reduces the amount going back to the employer. This means that for as long as you can remain on Heart and Lung Act benefits -- with help and guidance from a skilled attorney devoted to your claim, using all of the resources available when workers compensation rights are properly managed to your benefit -- that legal help is fully funded by your employer. The employer gets a reduced "kick back" from the workers compensation administrator. Your checks stay the same, at your full HLA rate, while we have access to a fee to make fighting your fights worthwhile. Moreover, when the battles over the scope or description of your injury and over whether or when you are able to return to work are fought in the workers compensation forum, you have both greater protection and greater leverage than you will find in the Heart and Lung Act dispute forum.

Lump Sum Settlements for Career-Ending Injury - PRIOR to Forced Retirement

When the work injury for which you have qualified for Heart and Lung Act benefits is one that pushes you toward accepting a retirement, it is nothing short of CRITICAL that you first speak with a smart and competent attorney familiar with the interplay between the Heart and Lung Act and the Workers Compensation Act. Call attorney Tim Kennedy before you allow yourself to pushed into an early retirement. Proper coordination of HLA rights and WC rights, particularly for permanent or career-ending injuries, can make for a true windfall for any qualifying employee forced into retirement by a work injury -- but only if handled correctly and only if a devoted and aggressive workers compensation attorney acts to advise you of your full rights and develops and implements a strategy that works to your maximum benefit.

Getting the Most From a Heart and Lung Act Claim
and the Interplay with Workers Compensation Lump Sum Settlements

If your work injury is serious and carries the risk of a long-term impact on your career, you owe it to yourself to consult with a personal attorney to discuss options to get the most from your claim. In general, the goal of maximizing your rights after a Heart and Lung Act qualifying injury can best be met as follows:

The Workers Compensation Act rights underpinning your HLA benefits, and your medical support needs, should be aggressively pursued while you are still getting Heart and Lung Act benefits or prior to any determination that would deny you HLA benefits.
For serious, career-ending injuries, your workers compensation rights (which control the scope of the disability under the HLA and which can be used to extend benefits where your employer presses for a premature return to work) should be fully established and used as leverage for a full value lump sum settlement at or near the time HLA benefits may be brought to a close on "permanency" grounds, but before you accept a retirement. Accepting a pension creates an offset diluting the value of workers compensation benefit rights, while at the same time the fact of retirement greatly undermines your legal rights. A skilled attorney will seek ways to secure a full value settlement prior to your accepting a pension or a retirement and will review with you every option and path for your greatest recovery.
HLA rights can be protected and prolonged by a savvy attorney, through skillful shepherding of the medical and legal support and close communication with you as the injured employee and with your involved medical providers. A dedicated personal attorney serving in this role can do so with far more attention than a union-designated attorney may be able to devote to a given worker's case, even if the union lawyer might happen to be actually competent in workers compensation matters. Do not leave this to luck.
Your retirement/pension rights (and the timing of same) must be coordinated with a workers compensation "compromise and release" settlement that affords you a lump sum settlement based upon the true exposure otherwise confronting the employer for the well-handled work injury.

In far too many cases, employers and their insurance representatives have a far better understanding of the system, and manipulate the system far more effectively than any injured claimant. Union attorneys may minimize their involvement in an individual worker's case, may have divided loyalties, or their commitment of time or resources may be lacking, or they may focus their knowledge and skills on matters of general employment law, collective bargaining, grievance arbitration and other such matters -- not translating as specialized knowledge of the Pennsylvania Workers Compensation Act and its interplay with Heart and Lung Act rights. They are not likely to know what doctors to send you to for medical support. Or worse, they may leave you on a track where the employer (or the employer's insurance folks) direct and control your medical treatment -- always with the goal of rushing you back to work and minimizing both your injury and your recovery.

The result of a lack of attention or lack of skilled coordination of an injured worker's rights is, all too often, a forced retirement following from a prematurely concluded Heart and Lung Act claim and zero lump sum settlement to the injured worker -- despite the very substantial value their workers compensation rights would have carried if handled correctly, aggressively, and timely coordinated with the other benefits, pension and HLA rights. Don't let this happen to you. Once it is too late, it is too late.

Call attorney Tim Kennedy today to discuss your situation. There is no obligation. Let us explain how we can coordinate your Workers Compensation Act rights with your Heart and Lung Act rights to extend or maximize your overall benefits.

Call Now: (484) 787-2000