How Do You Check on Your Workers’ Compensation Claim Status in Maryland?

Filing a workers’ compensation claim in Maryland is often necessary after a workplace injury. While the process is designed to help injured workers receive benefits for medical treatment and lost wages, it can take time.

Once a claim is filed, you may find yourself wondering how to check the status of your claim and what to do if there are delays.

The Claims Process

Before checking the status of a workers’ compensation claim, it is helpful to understand how the process works in Maryland. After reporting an injury to an employer, you must file a claim with the Maryland Workers’ Compensation Commission (WCC).

Employers and insurance companies also have related obligations, like reporting the injury and providing necessary medical documentation.

Once the claim is submitted, the WCC reviews it and may request additional information.

If your claim is approved, you may begin receiving benefits. You have the right to appeal the decision if your claim is denied. Given the multiple steps involved, checking on the claim’s progress can provide clarity and help avoid unnecessary delays.

Any type of auto accident causes disruption. Even a minor fender-bender means taking the time to exchange information with all the parties involved and then dealing with the repairs.

In more severe accidents, like a Baltimore tractor-trailer wreck, your vehicle can easily be totaled, causing you to suffer devasting injuries, and even resulting in a loved one’s wrongful death.

These collisions also give way to insurance claims and potential lawsuits. When dealing with those situations, it helps to know the most dangerous and costly accident. Being aware of this can help you and your attorney request full and fair compensation for your loss.

The following is a breakdown of some of the most dangerous types of accidents, many of which often involve trucks:

In the past few years, concussions and other brain injuries suffered by football players have been much in the news. However, football and other contact sports are in the minority in terms of causing serious brain damage.

Vehicle accidents are at fault for many more cases of traumatic brain injury across the country.

Understanding the two forms of TBI

Even in a low-speed, rear-end collision, serious brain trauma is possible. There are two forms of traumatic brain injury: open and closed. An open head injury refers to a skull fracture or an incident in which a foreign object penetrates the skull. A closed head injury, which is much more common, is caused by a blow to the head; no open wound is involved. This could happen, for example, if the impact of a rear-end collision causes a person’s head to strike the steering wheel or dashboard.

A disengagement letter guards against legal malpractice

Say you expected your attorney to represent you in a real estate dispute, but he declares he is no longer providing representation to you. He insists that your attorney-client relationship has ended.

This is news to you. You had originally retained the attorney to draft a real estate contract, and you had no idea that his services were no longer available to you.

When it comes to any kind of work that goes on around high-voltage overhead power lines, the Maryland Occupational Safety and Health Law places safety responsibilities squarely on employers.

MOSH gives special emphasis to safety training, in that educating workers about safe work practices in proximity to power lines is essential.

Avoiding electrocution

Many accidents around energized power lines involve cranes, truck-mounted lifting equipment (bucket trucks), digging equipment and ladders. If these machines or objects come in contact with the lines, workers could suffer severe burns and other injuries, or instant electrocution.

Maryland law requires that workers and all their equipment stay a minimum of 10 feet away from overhead lines, with appropriate hazard signs. The minimum clearance for cranes is 20 feet. An operator should position the crane in such a way that the radius of the boom swing is outside of the absolute minimum clearance relative to the power lines.

Hundreds of people — passengers, pedestrians and motorists — are injured each year in mass transit accidents in the Baltimore area. Some people forfeit their right to compensation by waiting too long to bring a claim. Other victims never pursue legal action, believing that government entities are immune.

A public transit agency can be held liable — the same as an individual or corporate entity — but there are special rules and restrictions. Your best recourse is to work with a lawyer who has actually filed and won such claims.

Do I have to be a public transit passenger to sue the transit agency?
No. Pedestrians who were struck by a bus or train, while crossing the street or waiting at the station or bus stop, may have claims. Occupants of other vehicles that collided with a bus or train may have grounds to sue. And of course, passengers who suffered lasting injury while riding, boarding or unboarding may have claims. According to Metrobus, the most common “customer injuries” (passengers) are collision-related, followed by slips, trips and falls.

In today’s Baltimore Sun, reporter Tricia Bishoplooks at the use of stents and the risks they bring. According to the article, until recently, use of cardiac stents to open blocked arteries has been all the rage and was seen as a relatively safe procedure when compared to open heart coronary bypass surgery. Since the 1990s, stents have been increasingly used and have generated more than $1 billion of revenue for Maryland’s hospitals.

In the wake of close to 600 claims against Mark Midei, M.D.- the once preeminent interventional cardiologist at St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Towson, Maryland — for unnecessary stenting of patients with little or no artery blockage, the health care community is now taking a hard look at the risks and benefits of cardiac stents and is now trending away from using them in favor of medications or bypass surgery. According to statistics from the state Health Services Cost Review Commission, stenting procedures in Maryland will drop by 25% this year (from 14,255 to 10,650).