Caring With Our Clients, Fierce With The Insurance Companies
In Illinois, nursing home facilities are inspected every 15 months or less by state regulators, but according to Families for Better Care, a non-profit elder advocacy group, the state’s nursing homes are still deficient in many critical health areas. The amended Illinois Nursing Home Care Act has placed nursing home liability for fatal accidents on the owner of the nursing…
Data from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration shows that both the rate of truck accidents and the number of injuries and fatalities associated with them are climbing. Crashes involving tractor trailers increased 11 percent between 2009 and 2012. Fatalities escalated by 16 percent, and there was a 43 percent rise in the number of injuries. In Illinois alone, 93…
Anyone who has experienced a back injury in the workplace is aware of the profound impact it can have on the quality of life. Even minor back injuries present disruptions to work-related activities. These worker injuries can be particularly devastating for workers employed in jobs in which a healthy back is required to perform well. According to the Bureau of…
Due to the nature of the work, employment as a hospital worker can be a rewarding experience. However, hospitals expose workers to a variety of risks, including the risk of injury. Fortunately, hospital workers in Illinois who experience workplace accidents are entitled to workers’ compensation. A statistical comparison among industries shows that hospitals are one of the most hazardous places…
In some cases, eligible injuries for workers’ compensation extend beyond those experienced in the workplace. Airline workers injured during layovers represent an example of these cases. In Illinois, this is especially relevant, given that the state features multiple large airports, including the O’Hare International, Midway and Chicago Executive airports. Under the Illinois Workers’ Compensation & Occupational Diseases Act, workers injured…
The highways and roads in Illinois and across the United States require thousands of hours of construction and maintenance each year. Much research has been conducted in order to create the safest environment for workers, as well as to protect vehicles that must pass through the area. Inconclusive research in the past suggested that a car accident is more likely…
In hospitals, nearly every medical device beeps or chirps, but the reasons for the sounds vary widely. The lack of machine standardization causes part of the problem because some alarms signal patient distress, while others indicate that the patient is stable. The constant din creates a white noise effect, so hospital staff either turn down the volume in order to…
According to its official website, the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission is a no-fault system of benefits paid by employers to workers who experience work-related injuries or diseases. In other words, the IWCC is a public institution acting as an intermediary between workers at risk of injury and employers at risk of liability for those injuries. IWCC performs three primary functions…
The range of claimable injuries and diseases under workers’ compensation in Illinois is diverse. While injuries with external, immediate effects, such as musculoskeletal injuries, are perhaps the most obvious, diseases with internal, delayed effects, such as respiratory diseases, can be equally devastating and eligible for claims under workers’ compensation law. Like all work-related injuries and illnesses, claims for respiratory diseases…
According to the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission, the question of whether a worker can collect workers’ compensation for an old injury is one of both time and definition. First, time is a potentially disqualifying condition for workers’ compensation cases in Illinois. Specifically, the amount of time that passes between the occurrence of a workplace-related injury and the execution of administrative…