This is the third post in my series on Oregon workers’ compensation law. My first post discussed how to file an Oregon workers’ compensation claim, and my second one explained how to obtain medical treatment after sustaining a workplace injury in the state of Oregon.
This post concerns how to recover lost wages in your workers’ compensation claim, and whether or not you will be able to. First of all, in order to recover lost wages, your healthcare provider must authorize your absence from work. Second, the injuries causing you to miss work must be the same injuries that you are seeking to recover from in your workers’ compensation case.
Oregon has a minimum and a maximum amount payable to injured workers, which gets adjusted every year. Your average weekly pay will be an important factor in calculating your time-loss benefit. Additionally, Oregon stipulates that you will not be paid for the first three calendar days of your time off of work unless you cannot work for 14 consecutive days or are hospitalized overnight as an inpatient within those 14 days. Of course, if your claim is denied within the 14 days immediately following the date you reported your injury to your employer, then you will not be paid for any lost wages.
I hope that this information has been helpful to you. In my next post, I will switch gears from talking about Oregon’s workers’ compensation system generally and will explain how to decipher the specific language of Oregon workers’ compensation claims.