Sustaining a workplace injury can seriously impact your life. You may have to receive prolonged medical treatment, lose your ability to work for a period or permanently and accrue many expenses.
Workers’ compensation helps deal with the costs associated with getting hurt at work. It covers healthcare bills, lost wages during your absence from work and disability if you become disabled. However, while workers’ compensation insurance may take care of the physical wounds and sicknesses, you may wonder what happens if you have a mental or emotional one.
Workers’ compensation covers emotional trauma under certain circumstances
The Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act does account for mental and emotional problems. There are two instances in which you may qualify to receive workers’ compensation for mental or emotional damage.
The first is if it results directly from a workplace injury or illness. A good example is if you develop depression due to not being able to work or being stuck in ongoing treatment. The second situation where you may receive benefits for a mental or emotional injury is if you witness or experience a traumatic event at work that causes it, such as seeing a fellow worker die or sustain severe injuries.
There must be solid evidence
Mental and emotional trauma, while very real, can be more difficult to prove. This is because it can manifest differently in you than in anyone else and vice versa. In many people, it can be hard to detect and it is not easily visible like physical injuries are. You must have proof of the mental and emotional damage, such as a diagnosis.
Distress arising from mental and emotional factors can be as debilitating as physical injuries. Workers’ compensation insurance may cover mental and emotional harm if it exists because of a workplace injury or circumstance.
