Learn about the most significant workers’ compensation benefits available in Kentucky for an on-the-job accident or occupational illness, how the state determines the amount of those benefits, and whether you are eligible for COVID-19 benefits.
If you’ve experienced a work-related accident or sickness in Kentucky, you’re probably curious about the benefits available via the state’s workers’ compensation system. This article discusses the most essential benefits offered to injured workers as well as the fundamental procedures for calculating compensation. The amount of money you get will be determined by your medical condition, capacity to return to work, prior earnings, and how state workers’ compensation rules apply to your claim.
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Can You Get COVID-19 Workers’ Comp Benefits in Kentucky?
Workers’ compensation payments for an infectious disease like COVID-19 may be available in Kentucky, but only if the nature of your employment raised your risk of exposure to the illness relative to the general population. In general, you would also require medical documentation demonstrating that you developed the ailment as a result of exposure while working, rather than throughout your life. Most workers would struggle to achieve both of those standards in the context of the coronavirus pandemic.
Governor Beshear issued an executive order on April 9, 2020, making it simpler to qualify for temporary total disability payments if you’ve been quarantined due to occupational exposure to COVID-19 during the state’s pandemic emergency, even if your workers’ compensation claim is eventually refused. If you work in specific industries, including as healthcare, law enforcement, firefighting, emergency medical services, grocery, the postal service, child advocacy, and certain child care, the state will infer that you were exposed on the job (as authorized during the emergency). Anyone else will have to give proof that the quarantine was necessary due to on-the-job exposure. If you qualify, compensation will begin on the first day of quarantine rather than after the regular waiting period for temporary incapacity (discussed below).
Kentucky Temporary Disability Income Benefits
If you are unable to return to your employment (or the same sort of work) while healing from your accident, you may be eligible for temporary total disability (TTD) income benefits to compensate for a portion of your lost wages. These payments are computed as two-thirds of your typical weekly salary at the time you were injured or became sick as a result of your employment, subject to yearly maximum and minimum amounts based on the date of your illness. The weekly maximum for injuries in 2020 is $979, while the weekly minimum is $178. (To see the maximum and minimum amounts for other injury dates, visit the Kentucky Department of Workers’ Claims website and scroll down to the current year’s “Workers’ Compensation Benefit Schedule.”)
Unless your temporary disability lasts more than two weeks, Kentucky does not provide TTD income benefits for the first seven days off work. The payments will continue until you are able to return to your regular employment or achieve a threshold known as “maximum medical improvement” (MMI), which signifies that your health has stabilized and is unlikely to improve even with more medical care.
Although Kentucky workers’ compensation does not officially offer what many states refer to as temporary partial disability, you may still be eligible for income benefits if you can undertake light-duty or other alternative job while you’re healing. In such case, your real after-tax earnings will counterbalance the amount of TTD benefits.
Kentucky Permanent Disability Income Benefits
When you reach MMI, your doctor will assess your condition to determine if you have a permanent impairment. If this is the case, you may be eligible for income assistance for complete or partial permanent disability.
Benefits for Permanent Total Disability
If your accident or disease precludes you from working in any capacity, you will be eligible to permanent total disability income payments at the same rate as TTD benefits. These payments will continue until you reach the age of 70, if you are fully incapacitated.
Kentucky’s Method for Calculating Permanent Partial Disability Benefits
If you can still work but your job-related accident or sickness has left you with some permanent handicap, your doctor will assign you a “permanent impairment rating.” This rating, which is a percentage expressing the amount to which you’ve lost total physical function, will then be entered into a system to calculate how much permanent partial disability (PPD) income benefits you may be eligible for. Kentucky’s PPD laws are intricate, however these are the fundamentals for calculating the amount of benefits:
The fundamental PDD formula. To begin, the state will use a formula to calculate the basic amount. Two-thirds of your pre-injury average weekly pay will be multiplied by the percentage of your impairment rating; this amount will then be multiplied by a factor provided in a table in Kentucky law (which ranges from.65 for an impairment rating of 5% or less to 1.7 for a rating exceeding 35%). For example, if you were previously earning $600 per week and obtained a 30% impairment rating for a back injury, your weekly benefits would be $162 (.6667 x 600 = $400; $400 x.3 = $120; $120 x 1.35 (the statutory component for a 30% rating) = $162).
Additional multipliers and limitations are applied depending on job status. If you are unable to return to the same sort of employment you were performing before to your accident, you will get three times the formula amount, subject to the same maximum and minimum as TTD benefits. If you’ve been able to return to work and are earning the same or more as you were before your accident, your maximum benefits will be reduced (for most individuals, $734.25 for 2020 injuries). However, if that job stops for any reason, you may be eligible for PDD payments equivalent to double the amount calculated above (up to the time limit discussed below).
Additional multipliers are available depending on age and education. Kentucky law additionally lowers the amount of PPD payments for injured employees with minimal education and who are above the age of 65, since these circumstances might hinder their capacity to make a livelihood.
If all of this seems confusing, that’s because it is. That’s why most injured workers engage a workers’ compensation lawyer to guide them through the process. However, if you’ve already been awarded an impairment rating, you may use Kentucky’s PPD Benefit Calculator to receive an estimate of your benefit amount.
Kentucky Permanent Partial Disability Benefits Duration
Regardless of the multipliers stated above, there is a time restriction in Kentucky for receiving PPD income benefits. If you have a rating of 50% or less, you will get PDD benefits for 425 weeks; if your rating is 51% or more, you will receive benefits for 520 weeks from the moment you first experienced impairment greater than 50%.
Other Kentucky Workers’ Compensation Benefits
In addition to income payments for temporary and permanent disability, Kentucky workers’ compensation covers the following categories of benefits:
Medical attention. Workers’ compensation will pay for any reasonable and necessary medical care for a work-related accident or sickness. If you are permanently and fully incapacitated (or have certain other sorts of significant injuries, such as amputation or hearing loss), your benefits will be paid for the rest of your life. If you have a permanent partial disability, your medical benefits will usually end after 780 weeks (from the date of accident), unless you apply for and are granted an extension.
Benefits upon death. Kentucky gives income compensation to the surviving spouse and any dependents when an employee dies as a consequence of a job accident or occupational sickness. The amount and length of those benefits will be determined by the deceased employee’s wages before to the accident, as well as the number and kind of dependents. If the death occurs within four years of the accident, workers’ compensation will pay a lump amount to the dead employee’s estate. Even if an employee with a valid workers’ compensation claim dies for reasons other than the workplace accident or illness before the time restriction for permanent disability income benefits expires, the surviving spouse and children may be entitled to a part of the unpaid payments.
Benefits for retraining coal miners with black lung disease. Kentucky offers specific workers’ compensation payments to coal miners suffering from pneumoconiosis (commonly known as black lung sickness), covering income and other education expenses while they pursue education or retraining.
Limitations on Workers’ Compensation Benefits
The workers’ compensation system has advantages and disadvantages. On the negative side, income benefits only cover a portion of your lost earnings, and you will not be compensated for your pain and suffering—the physical and mental discomfort caused by your accident. (There are only a few restricted circumstances in which you may sue outside of the workers’ compensation system to collect all of your damages, including pain and suffering, after a workplace accident.) On the bright side, you may obtain benefits promptly without having to file a lawsuit, establish that your employer was at fault for your accident, and figure out how to meet your medical bills and lost income while you wait for the verdict.