Few people think about what would happen if they were suddenly hurt or became so sick that they couldn’t return to work, but it is an unfortunate reality that faces people around the world every day. Employees in the state of New Jersey are protected from the financial challenges presented by these situations by the Temporary Disability Benefits Law, or TDBL, which provides qualified workers with up to 26 weeks of partial wage replacement if they suffer from a non-work-related…
When people think of the type of work disability that may affect first responders, they tend to envision the most obvious physical injuries: gunshots for police officers; burns or smoke inhalation for firefighters; muscle strains and dangerous exposures for EMTs lifting patients or working with those who are extremely ill. But according to recent studies, one of the most insidious dangers faced by first responders is PTSD, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Though PTSD is usually associated with experiencing a…
When a person is injured on the job, they are entitled to workers’ compensation benefits. These benefits may include the costs of medical treatment and compensation for lost wages during rehabilitation and prescription medications. With many of the injuries sustained in the workplace leading to chronic pain, this means that some of the prescriptions being covered by workers’ compensation are often opioids. Though opioids are an effective pain management tool, their use and overuse in the United States has reached…
If you are a member of a union and you are injured on the job, you may be concerned about whether going out on disability will impact your union status. Not only do you have nothing to fear on that front, but you are likely to find yourself in a better position than nonunion employees do. As a dues-paying union member, your ability to be approved for workers’ compensation following a workplace injury is statistically far greater than is true of…
The state of New Jersey passed a medical marijuana law back in 2010. When the law was enacted, it named six specific conditions for which the use of medical marijuana can be prescribed by a physician. These include Lou Gehrig’s disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis); terminal cancer; inflammatory bowel diseases including ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease; muscular dystrophy; multiple sclerosis; and any illness for which the prognosis is less than a year. It is also available for those with HIV and…