Once you reach maximum medical improvement from your Texas work injury, a doctor will perform an impairment rating exam. If you have any permanent impairment resulting from your work injury, then you will be owed impairment income benefits. These benefits are not a settlement of your case. However, they are the closest thing Texas has to a settlement of a workers’ comp claim.
When Impairment Income Benefits Are Paid
You will be owed impairment income benefits beginning the day after you reach maximum medical improvement. Not the day after you receive the impairment rating report, but the day after your certified maximum medical improvement date. You will find this date on the front of the official form that came with your impairment rating. On that form, a DWC-69, you will see both a maximum medical improvement date and an impairment rating percentage. You are owed IIBs beginning on the day after the assigned MMI date. The adjuster has to issue a check within 5 days of receiving a copy of the impairment rating.
Impairment income benefits will continue weekly as long as you are owed benefits. To calculate this period, multiply your impairment rating by 3. That is how many weeks you are owed IIBs. So, if you got a 5% impairment rating, you are owed 15 weeks of IIBs. Those fifteen weeks are calculated beginning the day after your assigned MMI date. This means that if the doctor “back-dated” your MMI date, then you may need to file a dispute ASAP. If your assigned MMI date was more than 15 weeks ago, the insurance company may claim that they don’t owe you anything at all!
How Much Will You Get Paid For IIBs?
Impairment income benefits are calculated based on your average weekly wage. The insurance adjuster is required to pay you 70% of your AWW for each week that IIBs are owed. The minimum rate for these benefits is $151.00 if you were injured after October 1, 2020. The maximum is $705.00. So, if 70% of your average weekly wage is higher than $705.00, you still get the lower amount. You are entitled to these benefits if you have any permanent impairment. It doesn’t matter if you had any disability at all after your injury, you are still entitled to IIBs.
If you get an impairment rating or an MMI date that needs to be disputed, you have to act fast to file a dispute. There is a ninety-day deadline to get that done. If you wait until the impairment income benefits are paid out, it could be too late.
If you get an impairment rating and you are still unable to work, you may qualify for social security disability. Call us to find out whether you can turn your workers’ comp case into social security disability benefits.
Hello my name is Joshua Delgado I had a workers comp injury that occurred on October 6th 2020 and I ended up getting paid out through workers’ comp after the injury due to it resulting in surgery, where they had to reattach the tendon in my right hand after multiple doctors visits where they stated nothing was wrong with my hand I just needed physical therapy, it wasn’t until the orthopedic surgeon got to me and was able to send me in for an MRI and they noticed a foreign object in my hand and then they scheduled me for surgery and when they were doing the surgery the orthopedic surgeon said that he had found that my extensor tendon was severed due to the injury and the injury happened in October the surgery occurred on March 5th several months later and now I am being released under MMI and my hand is still not the same I’m being rushed out of therapy I am being rushed out into MMI from the surgeon everything feels like they’re just trying to rush me out of there to you know get the money from the insurance and everything and on top of all of that my employer at the time of injury terminated me due to the injury no more than a month after the actual injury date. I was also harassed by him I have multiple phone calls and videos of him harassing the Karen now clinic I was going to demanding drug screens for me to see the doctor even though I wasn’t employed with him and now I’m just feeling like I am cheated out of money that I was owed I lost an apartment I didn’t have a job this entire time I’ve been struggling and living off of the wages through workers compensation & just really am demanding any kind of justice at this point because I am left feeling worthless broken and like I am unable to go back to the work that I was once doing because I am not able to feel safe on a ladder or lifting to 300 lb piece of glass like I just was and for them to release me on MMI and state that I’m okay to go back to work is BS in my opinion as I cannot go back to the same work at the same rate of pay I have to start over in a new field and learn and educate in order to get back to the way I was. Please help!
Please get in contact with us asap. We need to evaluate your treatment and the impairment rating you received and see what we can do to get you a better outcome.