Vocational Rehabilitation for Commonwealth Edison

Chicago Workers’ Compensation Lawyers for Commonwealth Edison Employees

As a Commonwealth Edison worker, you routinely face significant risks of injuries on the job. Dangers include falls, electrocutions, shocks, burns, heart attacks, and more. After a job-related injury, you may not be able to work for an electric utility any longer. Your doctor may have specified you have certain physical restrictions. Vocational rehabilitation programs can be of vital help if you need to get back to work after suffering a disabling injury on the job but can’t go back to doing the same job at ComEd. If you believe you need vocational rehabilitation, you should contact the strategic Chicago workers’ compensation lawyers of Katz, Friedman, Eisenstein, Johnson, Bareck & Bertuca to represent you in your claim against Commonwealth Edison. We seek the best available outcome and examine the circumstances to determine whether other relief is appropriate, too.

Vocational Rehabilitation Benefits

You should seek medical care after sustaining injuries on the job in or around Chicago. However, your doctor may institute certain physical restrictions that leave you unable to climb, lift, or work near electricity. Commonwealth Edison may not be able to place you in a job that has the same pay as the one you held prior to the accident. However, the electric company is required to pay for workers’ compensation insurance that provides benefits that could be useful in the event you can no longer work due to job-related injuries. One potential benefit that our lawyers may be able to pursue on your behalf is vocational rehabilitation.

Vocational rehabilitation is performed by a qualified professional who can work to figure out how a particular worker can get back to the workforce. It is a viable benefit if you are able to be retrained and reeducated to do a different type of job. While there is no clear and concrete standard used to determine whether a worker with an injury is entitled to vocational rehabilitation, generally, work injuries that result in a decrease your earning power should qualify you for this benefit.

In most cases, Commonwealth Edison and its insurer will expect you to try to get a job and demonstrate you aren’t able to get work that falls within your permanent physical restrictions. Only if you try and can’t get a new job within those physical restrictions will you be able to receive vocational rehabilitation.

Services for which you may be eligible could include counseling, job modification, job placement, and job exploration. Training to get a new job and actually being placed in that new job is part of vocational rehabilitation. For instance, it might be appropriate for ComEd and its insurer to pay for you to go to secretarial school if you were injured out in the field but can still do a desk job.

Under Section 8(a) of the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act, ComEd is supposed to pay for vocational rehabilitation, including not only the training itself, but also maintenance costs like living expenses and room and board. Our attorneys can pursue that relief as appropriate.

What Happens During Vocational Rehabilitation

Typically, the first step in vocational rehabilitation is assessing and evaluating your expectations for work. You may have previously received training in a different line of work, or there may be certain skills you obtained on the job with ComEd that can transfer to a new job, depending on what type of work you did. The specific services should be tailored to you and your medical restrictions. The individual plan that is developed must account for your specific needs.

Hire a Chicago Law Firm Who Represents Injured Commonwealth Edison Employees

It can be complicated to try to get vocational rehabilitation as a disabled, former ComEd worker. The attorneys of Katz, Friedman, Eisenstein, Johnson, Bareck & Bertuca handle workers’ compensation claims against Commonwealth Edison for vocational rehabilitation benefits in Quincy, Rockford, Champaign, and Aurora, as well as Winnebago, Sangamon, Cook, Kane, and Adams Counties. We also handle third party lawsuits and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) claims. Call us at 312-724-5846 or complete our online form.