Certified Rehabilitation Counselor for CTA Employees

Workers’ Compensation Law Firm for CTA Employees

As a worker employed by the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), you are part of a system that provides public transportation to both the city and its surrounding suburbs. CTA buses and rail cars travel many miles every day. As a CTA worker, you face potential difficulties on the job including traffic and bad weather and difficult passengers, and if you are injured, you are entitled to workers’ compensation benefits. Katz, Friedman, Eisenstein, Johnson, Bareck & Bertuca hase represented claimants, including transportation workers, for more than 60 years. If you are a CTA worker in need of a certified rehabilitation counselor, you should call our experienced Chicago workers’ compensation lawyers. We understand the nuanced requirements surrounding this benefit and when it is appropriate for a worker to pursue it.

Lawyers to Choose a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor

Prolonged disability can be both emotionally and physically challenging for a worker in Chicago. When CTA is your employer, it may send you to a conservative company doctor or withhold your lost wage benefits. Moreover, if you are injured in a job-related accident, you may need to deal with CTA adjustors rather than outside insurance adjustors. Their goal will be to limit the benefits you can get, including those in connection with vocational rehabilitation, even when you are entitled to that benefit. As an injured CTA worker, you may be distracted by medical benefits or disability benefit disputes.

Written Assessment

When you have a significant, disabling work-related injury and are not able to work for more than a year, your employer is supposed to prepare an assessment not only with regard to your medical care plan, but also whatever rehabilitation is needed to return you to the workforce. The latter vocational rehabilitation assessment is needed if it can be reasonably decided you will, due to your injuries, be unable to resume ordinary duties in which you were engaged at the time of the injury.

The write-up should look at whether you need a program that involves vocational evaluation, along with medical evaluation, restricted duty, or retraining. Thereafter, every four months, until the claim is terminated by you and the employer or the Commission’s order, your program should be reevaluated. If the most necessary prior assessment determined no plan or program was needed, a written review of that conclusion must be prepared at a four-month mark. When a plan or program has already been developed, it will need to be assessed for its continued appropriateness and modified every four months.

Copies of each written assessment or modification should be provided to you and us, when we are your representatives, at the time of preparation. An additional copy should be retained in the CTA file.

Selection of a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor

It is important to stay cooperative with your certified rehabilitation counselor and any rehabilitation efforts because your employer can suspend benefits when you do not cooperate. You might be found uncooperative, for example, if you refused to participate in job interviews without providing proper notice or failed to research your vocational interests or refused to accept positions the counselor found you.

Hire a Law Firm That Represents CTA Employees

It is wise to consult our lawyers once you realize your injuries may be so severe you require vocational rehabilitation. Our experience allows us to vet counselors and determine whether they would be good fits for our clients. For some CTA workers, the goal is to get placed in another job. For others, the purpose is simply resolving an existing claim. We can talk to you about what goals might be appropriate in your specific situation and advocate on your behalf. We will also examine the situation to determine whether you have other avenues you can take to obtain the necessary relief.

Our Chicago workers’ compensation attorneys handle the claims of CTA employees in Champaign, Rockford, Quincy, and Aurora, along with Cook, Kane, Sangamon, Winnebago, and Adams Counties. We also handle Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) claims and third-party lawsuits on behalf of CTA workers. Call us at 312-724-5846 or complete our online form.