Workers’ compensation helps to cover the costs associated with a medical condition that directly results from someone’s career decisions. Many times, workers’ compensation covers the costs of traumatic injuries, like broken bones or head injuries that a worker suffers on the job. Such injuries can alter the course of someone’s life and drastically change their earning potential.
However, you don’t have to fall off scaffolding or get into a crash in a company vehicle to qualify for workers’ compensation. Some people qualified based on illnesses they acquired while performing their job. Could you potentially get workers’ compensation for a medical condition that ties to your career?
You need evidence to connect your condition to your work
If you develop an aggressive form of cancer, sometimes you could get workers’ compensation to cover your treatment and lost wages. However, you will have to show that the cancer is the result of your job. If you had exposure to asbestos in your line of work and have developed either lung cancer or mesothelioma, for example, you may be able to successfully claim that your job caused your cancer.
Infections, insect- or blood-borne illnesses, repetitive motion injuries and even rare diseases contracted because of exposure to sick humans on the job could all be conditions that qualify you for workers’ compensation. The kind of work you do and the illness you’ve contracted will need to have a connection to make a viable claim for workers’ compensation benefits.
Discussing the nature of your injury with a lawyer and how you believe it stems from the work that you do or have done in the past can be a first step toward getting the benefits that you deserve.