Radiation Injuries

Workplace Accident Attorneys Based in the Chicago Area

Radiation is energy that emanates from a source and travels through space or a material. Ionizing radiation is produced by unstable atoms because they have excessive amounts of energy, mass, or both. The unstable atoms are radioactive and emit radiation. Workers exposed to radiation may suffer many different types of injuries. If you suffer radiation injuries on the job, you can retain the Chicago radiation injury lawyers at Katz, Friedman, Eisenstein, Johnson, Bareck & Bertuca to assert your rights to benefits.

Radiation Injuries Can Cause Serious Consequences for Workers

Radiation is used in many different types of workplaces. It may be used to treat cancer, to sterilize health products, to find defects in welds, to make lightning rods work better, to measure moisture in soil, or to locate a pipeline leak. Certain jobs involve more exposure to radiation. These include radiologists and medical professionals, agricultural workers, nuclear industry workers, miners, nuclear weapons test participants, construction workers, pilots, manufacturing and industry workers, dentists, transportation workers, accident recovery workers, and liquidators.

Injuries suffered as a result of radiation may include permanent hair loss, increased or decreased pigmentation in skin, necrosis, cutaneous radiation injury, fibrosis, atrophy, erythema, acute radiation syndrome, various types of cancer, burns, and tissue death. Radiation exposure can alter and damage each tissue in a person’s body.

If you suffer radiation injuries that you believe are job-related, a radiation injury attorney in Chicago may be able to help you apply for workers’ compensation benefits. Workers’ compensation is a benefits system that pays for the medical costs of employees’ job-related diseases and injuries. This system covers most Illinois employees. Coverage begins when a job begins. The system is administered and handled by the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission, a government agency that serves as an administrative court when there is a dispute about an employee’s claims.

The Illinois workers’ compensation law provides for medical bills to be covered. The medical bills that may be covered include doctor’s appointments, medical equipment, therapy, and medications. In addition to reasonable medical care to treat the work-related injury or illness, workers’ compensation benefits include temporary total or partial disability benefits, permanent partial or total disability benefits, vocational rehabilitation, and death benefits. Workers’ compensation benefits are not taxable. Thus, if, for example, you develop cancer due to work-related radiation exposure, you may be able to obtain total temporary disability benefits or even permanent disability benefits. If you pass away, your spouse and children may be able to obtain death benefits with the assistance of a Chicago radiation injury attorney. Workers’ compensation needs to pay for the funeral costs up to at most $8,000.

The limit set by the law is that you can choose your health care provider twice. Any referrals by the doctor whom you pick count as part of the single choice. For example, if you see your family practitioner for certain symptoms, and you are then referred to an oncologist for further care related to a radiation injury, this would be a single choice. Also, emergency care would not count as one of the choices.

You are not required to see the doctor whom your workers’ compensation insurer wants you to see. However, your employer may have a preferred provider network of health care providers, and it can require you to choose a provider who is in-network to treat your radiation injuries. If you decide to go out of network, you would have one choice in health care providers rather than two.

Consult an Experienced Radiation Injury Lawyer in Chicago

Insurers may dispute the causal connection between your radiation injuries and your job. They may deny you medical evaluations, imaging, therapy, or procedures that you need. If you are trying to obtain workers’ compensation benefits for radiation injuries, you should consult an experienced workers’ compensation lawyer about your claim. At Katz, Friedman, Eisenstein, Johnson, Bareck & Bertuca, we represent victims in Chicago, Quincy, Rockford, Champaign, Springfield, and Aurora, as well as other cities in Adams, Winnebago, Champaign, Sangamon, Kane, and Cook Counties. You can call us at 312-724-5846 for a free consultation.