TEN THINGS YOUR ADJUSTER MAY HAVE FORGOTTEN TO TELL YOU

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1 10 TEN THINGS YOUR ADJUSTER MAY HAVE FORGOTTEN TO TELL YOU

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3 1 Insurance Companies are in the business of making money, not the business of helping injured people. 2 Your average weekly wage includes overtime, bonuses, tips, per diem, etc. 3 Even if you are released to return to work the adjuster cannot just cut off your checks. 4 You really can be fired while on workers compensation. 5 The adjuster chose your doctor for a reason. 6 Your rehab nurse works for the insurance company. 7 You can be paid to go to college. 8 Your case doesn t end when you get a rating Your family many be entitled to be paid for taking care of you. Injured workers with attorneys tend to get larger settlements than those who don t. Toll Free:

4 1 INSURANCE C OMPANIES ARE IN THE BUSINESS OF MAKING MONEY, NOT THE BUSINESS OF HELPING INJURED PEOPLE. This sounds obvious, right? And it is obvious. But injured workers, employers, attorneys and just about everyone else forgets it. And the adjuster will never point that out to you. You re injured on the job, and you want to get better. If you get better you get back to work and get on with your life. That s what you re probably interested in, and that s what you re fighting for. Over the years hundreds of clients have told us It s not about the money. Those same clients have a difficult time understanding the insurance adjuster s thinking. They re people like us, right? Sort of. For the insurance adjuster, it s always about the money. We re not bashing the adjusters here many of them are good people. We ve even represented some in their own claims. But they have a job to do just like you did until your injury occurred. Like any other business, the insurance companies are trying to make money. They aren t charities. There are two ways for the company to make more profit: First, they could charge more money to provide insurance. Second, they can keep more of what they collect from the employers. Obviously it doesn t work for them to charge more and more money because your employer will switch to a cheaper carrier. Employers can do that. Workers cannot. So the insurance companies will do everything they can to spend as little on your claim as humanly possible. The sooner you begin thinking like an adjuster, the sooner you will understand what the system is doing to you. As you read through the rest of this booklet, remember it s about the money. Why you need us: There are almost too many examples and reasons to cite! But, in our records, for every adjuster who has voluntarily told an injured worker the things in the rest of this booklet there are at least a couple who haven t. It s not that adjusters are necessarily liars they just don t always remember to ask you questions which are going to end up costing them a lot of money. OXNER + PERMAR, PLLC

5 YOUR AVERAGE WEEKLY WAGE INCLUDES OVERTIME, BONUSES, TIPS, PER DIEM, ETC. 2 Your average weekly wage may be the single most important fact in you case. It is the basis by which your claim will be valued by the adjuster. If you are disabled from all work, you get paid two-thirds of it, tax-free. If you cannot do your regular job but can do a lesser-paying task, you will be paid two-thirds of the difference between your average weekly wage and what you re able to earn now. Not only that, if you have a permanent injury as a result of your accident, you will be entitled to a settlement which is based on you average weekly wage. As you can see, it is absolutely essential that the adjuster is using the correct average weekly wage. Anything less than that means money legally intended for you is staying with the insurance company. What the adjuster won t tell you is that the average weekly wage includes overtime that you ve worked. If you received any performance or holiday bonuses then those are included as well. Also, if your employer gave you money for gas, meals, lodging or any other allowances, those would be part of the average weekly wage. One of the trickiest areas is that of tips. Those of us who have worked for tips know that what is reported in tips may not be exactly what was received. The adjuster usually just assumes there were no tips at all and bases the average weekly wage on the hourly rate of pay which is often $2.13 per hour. The fight over getting unreported income included in the average weekly wage can be difficult, but it can also be the difference between going broke and making it while you recover from your injury The adjuster should have filed a report with the Industrial Commission which lists your hourly rate and number of hours worked weekly. Check this carefully to make sure the information is correct. Why you need us: More times than we can tell you an adjuster has forgotten to include overtime in the average weekly wage. We ve successfully gone to bat for injured workers to include tips and other unreported income in the average weekly wage. And we routinely force adjusters to recalculate the average weekly wage to exclude periods of time when you were off work for more than a week. Properly calculating an average weekly wage is complicated. The statutes include five different ways of doing this and the adjusters are skilled at using math to reach a conclusion they like. Knowing exactly where to look and what to ask for takes practice and a trained eye. Toll Free:

6 3 O NCE YOU START RECEIVING C HECKS, T HERE ARE ONLY THREE WAYS THEY CAN BE STOPPED Once you start receiving checks, there are only three ways they can be stopped. This is absolutely critical to your case because it gives you power. When the adjuster begins making payments to you he is supposed to file a form with the Industrial Commission documenting that this has occurred. If you begin receiving checks but have not received an Industrial Commission form documenting this, you should ask for one immediately. Under North Carolina law, your checks can only be stopped if 1) you go back to work or 2) the Industrial Commission gives the adjuster permission to cut off your checks or 3) you exhaust your benefits. Think about this carefully. You will continue to receive checks until you return to work. As soon as you go back to work, the checks are terminated and you are back on payroll again. But what happens if you cannot really do the job or have an aggravation of your injury? Well the adjuster is supposed to authorize a return visit for you to your treating physician, and if the doctor takes you out of work, then the adjuster turns your checks back on. Do you think the adjuster is going to be eager to send you back to the doctor when the likely result is that you are coming off of the employer s payroll and back onto the insurance company s roster? Of course not. Now if you are capable of working, you should do so. But as long as you are drawing weekly checks you have leverage over the adjuster. So make sure you know what the job is that you are going back to do. Another way to stop your checks is if the defendants file a written request with the Industrial Commission to do so. This is called a Form 24, and if you receive one in the mail, you should call an attorney immediately because your weekly checks are in jeopardy. The adjuster cannot just go and stop your checks because she is mad at you because you missed a doctor s visit or for any other reason. Unless you have returned to work, the adjuster may only stop your checks if she has already obtained the permission of the Industrial Commission. OXNER + PERMAR, PLLC

7 Finally, if you were injured after June 24, 2011 the last way your checks will stop is at the end of your 500 weeks of eligibility. Certain injured workers who are completely incapable of doing any work will be entitled to draw benefits beyond 500 weeks. But those cases will be pretty rare. For most of us, benefits will be paid for 500 weeks and that s it. If you were injured before June 24, 2011 you could potentially be entitled to benefits for life. Why you need us: Of the injured workers who call us and have had their checks stopped, far less than half went through the correct procedure. What s happened is the adjuster stopped the checks and gave the injured worker an explanation which may or may not have made sense as to why the checks were going to be cut off. We have personally seen very few instances where an adjuster went through the proper procedures to have checks stopped when the injured had an attorney. This has ranged from sending the Form 24 to a wrong address (not the same address as where they d been sending a check for over a year) to simply not sending the Form 24 at all. The Form 24 process is complex with deadlines and formalities. One misstep and your checks may be stopped. And while it may take only a few days to have your checks stopped it will almost certainly take several months or more to have them turned back on. This isn t something to be handled on your own. Toll Free:

8 4 YOU ARE A SITTING DUCK, OR YES, YOU REALLY CAN BE FIRED WHILE ON WORKERS COMPENSATION When you are injured and incapable of doing you old job, you get paid for this disability. If you are totally out of all work, you get paid temporary total disability. It is temporary because you will likely improve, and this is not a permanent level of disability. It is total because you are totally out of work. It is a disability because you are disabled from work. Disability as it is used here, refers to your ability to do work. Temporary total disability is paid at the rate of two-thirds of your average weekly wage, up to a maximum which is adjusted every year. If you are injured and can do some work, just not your old job, you get paid temporary partial disability. The difference between temporary total disability and temporary partial disability is the fact that you can do some work. If you can do some work, workers compensation doesn t have to pay you as much. Temporary partial disability is two-thirds of the difference between what you made on your old job and what you are able to make on your new job. As you can see, the adjuster would love to get you on temporary partial disability so the insurance company could save some money. So let s say your employer calls you and says that they ve come up with a new job for you just to tide you over until you get better. You can sit on a chair, do a little of this and a little of that, nothing big, and you get paid your regular rate. Even if you do nothing more than writing your boss s name with a happy face all day long under the new workers compensation laws you must take this makework job. If you refuse to do so you give up the right to weekly and medical benefits. If, or when, your employer decides they are tired of paying you to do nothing, they simply tell you they cannot accommodate you any longer. What happens then? Will the insurance company voluntarily turn your weekly checks back on? In our experience the answer is nearly always No. The insurance company will put pressure on the employer to keep you working. The only glimmer of hope for the employer is if they can fire you for some alleged act of misconduct or violation of a company policy. If that happens the employer doesn t have to pay you to sit around and look good and the insurance company doesn t have to pay you either. It s a win-win for everyone except you. Toll Free:

9 Why you need us: If your employer is going to fire you it s much better if they do it while you are out of work on weekly checks. Between unemployment and workers compensation it s not even a close question. Unemployment pays something like 50%, it s taxable, and it lasts for six months. Workers comp is 66.6%, it s tax free, and routinely lasts for about ten years. Whether you avoid that financial disaster by not going back to work, getting taken out of work, or part of a negotiated agreement with your employer you don t want to leave yourself vulnerable to losing out on a huge amount of money. You need to have a long and hard conversation with us about how and where your employer is going with you. In North Carolina employers hold most all of the cards in terms of letting employees go. We aren t a bodyguard that can guarantee you won t be terminated. But in a lot of cases we ve been like a watchdog: employers have been slow to play games or pull dirty tricks because they knew we were watching and would be protecting our clients interests. OXNER + PERMAR, PLLC

10 5 YOUR AVERAGE T HE ADJUSTER WEEKLY WAGE C HOSEINCLUDES YOUR D OCTOR FOR A R EASON. OVERTIME, BONUSES, TIPS, PER DIEM, ETC. If the insurance company formally accepts liability for your claim, they get to direct your medical care. That means they get to pick the doctor who treats you. (You do have the right to object or to ask for a second opinion, but by-and-large the Industrial Commission gives the adjuster the first choice of doctors.) If you keep in mind that the insurance companies have been doing workers compensation business in North Carolina for a long time then you will realize that they have seen most of the doctors around. That is certainly true for orthopedists, neurosurgeons and other doctors who specialize in types of injuries which are common to workers. In fact, every year the Industrial Commission puts on an educational conference for adjusters. Along with private investigators and rehabilitation nurses, doctors offices from around the state come and set up booths where they market themselves to the adjusters. The insurance companies know which doctors will return injured workers to their jobs quickly and who will keep them out longer. The adjuster also knows which doctor will listen to a patient when they say I don t think I can do my regular job. Keeping in mind that the insurance adjuster s first job is to save money, you can pretty much be assured that they have a good reason for choosing your doctor. That doesn t mean that the insurance adjuster s favorite doctor is not a good doctor. That probably has nothing to do with it. The adjuster doesn t want you to get crippled in the operating room that would cost them even more money. But they do want to send you to a doctor who will take the company s side in most disputes, return you to work as soon as possible and be generally cooperative with the insurance company. Under North Carolina s new laws if the adjuster becomes disenchanted with her initial choice of doctors she can simply schedule an independent medical evaluation with another doctor. Prior to this she can have a telephone conversation with the doctor to explain exactly what she wants him to do and say. She can send him written records which may never be disclosed to you. And then she can move to have your benefits cut off if this specially prepared doctor comes through for her. OXNER + PERMAR, Toll PLLC Free:

11 Why you need us: Some employers have company doctors who are clearly identified as such. These doctors do all the pre-employment physicals, they may even have a small office onsite, and that s where everyone is sent if they get hurt at work. On the other hand many employers and their insurance companies have unofficial company doctors. Doctors who get such a large percentage of their business from certain companies that it seems to people watching this that the doctors decisions are at least partially made with an understanding of what those companies want. For instance we know of some urgent care facilities who require you in order to be seen there to waive the right to confidentiality. You must specifically authorize them to call your supervisor and discuss your case, and they are not required to tell you the details of that conversation. Other doctors have told our clients that while they would ordinarily write someone out of work for this injury they do not do so when it s a workers compensation claim. With thousands of cases in our files, more North Carolina State Bar Board Certified Specialists in Workers Compensation than any other plaintiff s firm in the state, and over a hundred years of combined experience we have a pretty good idea what just about any doctor may do in a given situation. Put that experience to work for you when you are faced with talking to a doctor who seems to not be listening to you. OXNER + PERMAR, PLLC

12 6 YOUR YOUR CASE FAMILY REHAB DOESN MAY NURSE BE T END ENTITLED WORKS WHEN TO BE FOR PAID THE YOU FOR INSURANCE GET TAKA RATING. CARE C OMPANY OF YOU.. Rehabilitation nurses, or rehab nurses as they are often called, are usually assigned by adjusters to the claims of injured workers. The rehab nurses have rules which govern how they deal with you, and the first of these is that they must put your interests first. Realistically, even if the best nurse wants to put your interest first, he or she is still working for the insurance company. Sometimes many insurance companies have their own rehabilitation nurses on staff. Often these are telephonic nurses who sit in cubicles adjacent to the insurance adjusters. Other times, the rehabilitation nurses work out of their homes but are linked to the same computer system as the adjusters are. Some of these rehab nurses identify themselves as employees of the insurance companies; however, many insurance companies have nurses which use a different company name even though they are all part of the same corporate family. Even if the rehab nurse works for a completely neutral company, you should remember who hired them. Except in extremely rare instances, the rehab nurses are hired by the insurance companies. Many of them have rules which prevent them from being hired by the plaintiff s lawyers. The rehab nurses are in the business of providing a service to the insurance companies, and in this respect, they are like every other business that is trying to sell something. If they consistently take the side of the injured worker, the insurance company will quit hiring them. The Industrial Commission sets the rates which medical providers may charge for any type of treatment, but the Industrial Commission doesn t regulate the amount the rehab nurses can charge. So the rehab nurse bills while driving from her home office to the doctor s office. She bills while waiting in the lobby with you, bills while you are having your private exam, bills while she talks to the doctor and you, bills while she drives home and bills while she writes a report about what the doctor said. All of that is probably two to three hours of her time which at the average rehab nurse s rate of $85.00 is $ $ total. OXNER + PERMAR, Toll PLLC Free:

13 The adjuster is paying this high price because the nurse is the eyes, ears and most importantly the mouth of the insurance company telling the doctor what the adjuster wants to happen. Now don t get us wrong, rehab nurses can be very helpful, and in many instances we have no dispute with them. But always be aware that they work for the insurance company. Why you need us: We ve caught rehabilitation nurses who altered doctor s return to work notes, rehabilitation professionals who pretended to be someone else, rehabilitation professionals who brought private investigators with them to record conversations with clients, rehabilitation nurses who wrote confidential memos to adjusters recommending that they change doctors because Dr. is too patient oriented, and rehabilitation nurses who recommended that adjusters put surveillance on clients. And that s just the tip of the iceberg. Many of these rehabilitation professionals who were caught red-handed are still handling cases with injured workers today. Here s a quick test the nurses are required to copy you with ALL correspondence with the adjuster or your employer. Have you been getting copies of her s? Are all rehabilitation nurses corrupt? Of course not. Most of them try to do their job ethically. But it s been our observation and impression that when rehabilitation nurses have cubicles next to the cubicle occupied by an adjuster the nurse cannot help but have some of that adjuster mindset rub off on them. We are happy to take on the role of the bad cop and make sure that the rehabilitation nurse is doing things appropriately. OXNER + PERMAR, PLLC

14 7 YOUR CASE FAMILY DOESN MAY BE T END ENTITLED WHEN YOU CAN YOU BE PAID GET TO A RATING. GO TO COLLEGE TO BE PAID FOR TAK CARE OF YOU. If you were injured after June 24, 2011 you are entitled to have expenses paid for you to go to any community college or university in the North Carolina state system. There are certain prerequisites to this, however, but a good attorney who understands the law will help you get each of those in order. If you were injured prior to June 24, 2011 you still are entitled to have your schooling paid for, although it is not quite as easy to accomplish. Under either situation, the adjuster probably won t go out of her way to tell you that she may have to pay all your schooling expenses plus keep you on weekly checks while you go to, or go back to, college. Why you need us: Like the rest of us, adjusters sometimes have a hard time dealing with reality. They keep hoping for the best, that everything is going to work out okay. In this situation working out okay for an adjuster, means that even though you cannot return to your old job, or anything else in that field, and you are out of work looking for a new job, they still believe you are going to find an entry level job in a new field which pays just as much money as you used to make. It s possible like winning the lottery is possible but it just doesn t happen very often. Still that remote possibility lets adjusters try to put off taking the hard road and paying to send you back to school to learn a new trade which you can physically do. The laws which control re-education are pretty specific. We ve successfully sent a lot of clients back to school either while the claim is open or after closing it out. It s an important step in moving forward when an unexpected accident takes your career away from you. With the time limitations on workers compensation under the new laws it is more important than ever that you move aggressively and quickly to start over. Very often an education is a key part in that. OXNER + PERMAR, Toll PLLC Free:

15 I NJURED WORKERS YOUR CASE WITH DOESN ATTORNEYS T END WHEN TEND TO GET LARGER SETTLEMENTS YOU GET THAN A RATING. THOSE WHO DON T. 8 Eventually you will recover to the point that you are as good as you are going to get. This, in legal terms, is the point of maximum medical improvement or MMI. When your doctors tells you that you re at MMI, she will also probably tell you that you have a rating to your injured body part. This rating may be 10%, 20% or even 50%. The rating is a permanent partial disability rating or PPD. It is permanent because the doctor no longer believes you will improve your functioning. It is partial because you still have the ability to work, but it is clearly a disability. The legislature has assigned a value to most of your body parts. For example, if your thumb were cut off below the knuckle in an industrial accident, you would have a 100% permanent impairment rating of the thumb. That would entitle you to 75 weeks of pay at your compensation rate (two-thirds of your average weekly wage subject to certain maximum amounts). If you crushed your thumb instead and lost some of the ability to grasp with it, the doctor might give you a 33% rating to the thumb. Thus you would get one-third of 75 weeks or 25 weeks of benefits. All of that is well and good if you are able to return to your old job or to a new job making just as much money as you did before you were hurt. But let s say that even though the doctor gives you a relatively minor permanent impairment rating of 10% or 15%, if that keeps you from being able to earn as much money as you did prior to your accident, you are entitled to ongoing weekly checks. Quite often when the doctor gives you your rating, the adjuster will quickly contact you and advise that the rating will be paid out promptly. What happens if you don t agree to this? You keep drawing your weekly checks. In fact, if you can never return to work you would draw checks for the rest of your life. If you can return to work but at less pay than before, you are entitled to be paid two-thirds of your average wage loss for a period of weeks. Most importantly, you are entitled to elect which of these three methods would pay you the most money and go that route. Toll Free:

16 If your wage loss over the balance of the week period is far greater than the value of the PPD rating, then why on earth would you knowingly elect to take the rating? You wouldn t. And that is exactly why the adjuster will quickly offer it to you. Because once the Industrial Commission approves your acceptance of the PPD benefits, you will have made your election even if you didn t have all the information you wish you did. Why you need us: The same doctors who were hand-picked by the insurance adjuster and your employer are the doctors who are evaluating the extent of your permanent injury. The higher the rating the more it s going to cost the insurance adjuster. And the doctor knows that full well. All to often the adjusters forget to tell you that you are entitled to a second opinion on that rating. They occasionally forget to tell you that this second opinion can be with a doctor that you choose. And the adjusters will sometimes forget to tell you that they, not you, have to pay for that second opinion. Insurance companies aren t the only ones who can keep records of how doctors respond to certain injuries. Fortunately for you we ve also got a pretty good idea how doctors rate permanent disabilities. We ve been dealing with doctors all across the state for years and can point you in just the right direction. Toll Free:

17 I NJURED WORKERS YOUR CASE FAMILY WITH DOESN MAY ATTORNEYS BE T END ENTITLED WHEN TEND TO GET LARGER TO SETTLEMENTS BE PAID YOU FOR GET TAK THAN A RATING. THOSE CARE OF WHO YOU. DON T. 9 If you are injured to the extent that you need hospitalization, the adjuster must authorize this. Fortunately, this level of care is not often needed, and you are able to recuperate at home with your family and friends in more comfortable surroundings. But what happens if you still require medical assistance? The insurance company should provide for a home health aide to come to your house and take care of you. In many instances, we have successfully convinced the insurance companies to hire family members rather than outside nursing assistants. This is not true in every instance, and some adjusters are opposed to ever doing so; however, it is a benefit which we believe you are unquestionably entitled to. The key to obtaining this benefit, know as attendant care, is to have your doctor acknowledge that there are aspects of your regular life, or activities of daily living (ADLs) which you cannot do as a result of your injury. The doctor then has to specifically write a prescription for it. Accordingly, the carrier should pay for the care necessary to provide you with the necessary assistance in these ADL s. In many cases, it is more economical for the carrier to utilize your own family members than it would be to obtain services from an agency. Some examples of services which family members have been paid to perform include cooking, cleaning, helping bathe and dress their loved ones, yard work and more. The important thing is that the request needs to be made in advance, if at all possible, or as quickly after the family member provides the services as is possible. Why you need us: We ve seen many adjusters flatly deny that injured workers are entitled to this benefit. While reasonable people could disagree (maybe ) on whether or not an injured worker SHOULD be entitled to this benefit the law is very clear about it. Injured workers are entitled to attendant care. We think it s wrong when an adjuster tells someone that the law doesn t allow for it. What the law does say is that the doctor needs to authorize it in advance and that there needs to be pretty specific guidelines as to what is involved. We have been very successful in terms of getting orders for attendant care and requiring the defendants in the case to pay for this. We don t see this as extra money for an injured worker because all too often your family members are taking off of work to care for you. And honestly when you re out of work and the family is taking a financial hit already, it s pretty unfair for the adjuster to expect your family to take another hit by taking time off work to care for you. OXNER + PERMAR, Toll PLLC Free:

18 10 I NJURED WORKERS WITH ATTORNEYS TEND TO GET LARGER SETTLEMENTS THAN THOSE WHO DON T. It makes sense for a booklet produced by attorneys to claim that those with legal representation would receive a larger settlement than those without, but don t take our word for it. The insurance industry created a private research firm the Defense Research Institute, to investigate who received more money (remember, the insurance company is a business so this is important information for them to have.) The Defense Research Institute found that injured workers with attorneys get, on average, settlements that are 2.7 times greater than those who try to handle their own workers compensation claim. Often, the experience of the attorney will lead to a larger benefit. As with anything, the more workers comp claims a person handles, the more likely they are to know the laws that govern their claim and know the pitfalls to obtaining all the benefits entitled. In addition to experience, however, emotion is an important factor in getting the largest benefit. Sometimes when we are injured, we take it personally. On the other hand, we often want to be seen as the nice employee. Having an objective person to work with you who has your best interest in mind often ends in better results. OXNER + PERMAR, PLLC Toll Free:

19 YOUR CASE DOESN T END WHEN YOU GET A RATING. Why you need us: We ve come full circle. We started out by showing that it s the adjusters job to make their companies profitable. They cannot write you a lot of checks and do that very easily. So it stands to reason that the adjuster isn t going to volunteer to you the information you need to get everything the law says is yours. It s not in their interests and it s unreasonable to expect them to do so. Please understand us: we aren t trying to get clients benefits they do not deserve or that the law does not allow. In our minds getting workers compensation is no different than getting a tax refund in April, social security retirement when you are 65, or having your health insurance pay for you to have your appendix removed when it ruptures. The only difference is that in the workers compensation system you have an entire system of adjusters, senior adjusters, field adjusters, and insurance defense attorneys who can try to come between you and those benefits. Neither the IRS, the Social Security Administration, nor most health insurance companies do that. But in workers compensation they do. That s why you need us. Toll Free: Toll Free:

20 5 THINGS TO LOOK FOR IN A WORKERS COMP LAW FIRM 1. Trust When choosing a workers compensation attorney, you have to trust that he or she will have the skills and experience necessary to obtain the best possible results and they are looking out for your best interests. Most of our clients come to us on the recommendation of family or friends. 2. Experience One of the key elements to getting results in a workers comp case is having an experienced attorney, someone who has worked similar cases and can be prepared for anything. We have over one hundred years of combined experience, including nearly 50 years of experience on the other side at insurance companies. Many attorneys who claim to be experienced in workers compensation have not even had 5 or 10 decisions, called Opinions and Awards, before the Industrial Commission hearings. With nearly five hundred reported decisions, we have the experience to win the tough cases and not just settle the easy ones. Before you hire an attorney, find out how much experience his or her firm really has. 3. Respected by Other Attorneys Being recognized by other attorneys, judges, and Deputy Commissioners as excelling in our work is the highest compliment which can be paid. The peer review completed by Martindale- Hubbell is the standard by which all attorneys evaluate each other. Our firm is proud to have a AV rating which is the highest rating possible for professional skill and ethics. Be sure you ask any potential attorney what his or her rating is. 4. Board Certified Of the thousands and thousands of lawyers practicing in North Carolina, the North Carolina State Bar has certified less than 2% as having special knowledge, skill and proficiency in worker compensation. Isn t that the skill level you would want your attorney to have? Be sure there are Board Certified specialists working on your case. Oxner Thomas + Permar has more Board Certified Specialists in Workers Compensation than any other plaintiff s firm in the entire state of North Carolina. 5. Dedication This means more than just fighting for you; it means caring about you and your case and being available to meet with you. When you call us, you talk to attorneys, not to intake specialists. While we have well-trained paralegals on staff, our attorneys have open-door policies. So anytime you need to talk face-to-face with us, feel free to call and schedule an appointment. We ll be sure to see you this week at one of our offices statewide.

21 OXNER + PERMAR, PLLC Oxner + Permar is a group of experienced attorneys devoted to representing injured people. With attorneys who are AV Rated, Board Certified, members of the Million Dollars Advocates, or licensed to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States, we are skilled in handling a range of cases including workers compensation, social security disability, personal injury, automobile accidents and investigating medical malpractice. Please visit for more information about our firm. Oxner + Permar, PLLC has published this information as a service to our clients and friends for general information purposes only. These materials do not, and are not intended to constitute legal advice. For more information on the law firm of Oxner + Permar please call our toll free number, or visit our website,

22 YOUR CASE DOESN T END WHEN YOU GET A RATING. NOTES Toll Free: Toll Free:

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