The Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for Social Security benefits increase for 2014 is a mere 1.5 percent, the seventh time that a COLA has ever been less than 2 percent since the increases began in 1950. Recipients of Social Security retirement benefits and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) will see…
The Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Association (M.E.B.A.), AFL-CIO, is sad to announce that Jesse M. Calhoon, the M.E.B.A.’s longest serving and charismatic President who is widely credited with ushering the Union into the modern era, died on Tuesday, October 22, 2013. He was 90 years old. Jesse served the M.E.B.A. as…
Receiving reasonable and necessary medical treatment for a work injury in Pennsylvania (PA) can often be difficult and frustrating when dealing with a workers’ compensation insurance carrier. We have covered in other posts the ways insurance companies can delay the process and make an injured worker jump through hoops to…
Ron has once again been selected as a Pennsylvania Super Lawyer in Workers’ Compensation. Ron would like to thank his peers for recognizing his dedicated service to injured workers. Ultimately, he thanks his clients for the privilege of serving them in their workers’ compensation matters since it is the recognition…
In Pennsylvania (PA), Unemployment compensation reduces the amount of workers’ compensation benefits you receive by giving the workers’ compensation carrier an offset and credit due to the receipt of unemployment. But how is the offset calculated? Is the gross amount or the net amount (after taxes) used to calculate the…
When many people think of work-place injuries, they automatically think of manual labor jobs. It is true that most work-related injuries occur in labor-intensive professions, but a large number of work injuries do happen in white-collar, “safer” occupations. Professional education is one such field which experiences a high number of…
In May 2013, Ron Calhoon was certified as specialist in the practice of workers’ compensation law by the Pennsylvania Bar Association Workers’ Compensation Law Section. He successfully completed the certification process by submitting a variety of documents showing that at least 50% of his legal practice is in the specialty…
Under the Pennsylvania (PA) Workers’ Compensation Act, A UR, or Utilization Review, is a process by which an insurance company can have a workers’ compensation related treatment reviewed to determine if the treatment is both “reasonable” and “necessary”. When a treatment is reviewed, the Bureau assigns the review to a…
A frequent injury we see in Pennsylvania (PA) workers’ compensation cases is a tear of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in the knee of the injured worker. In the past, this type of injury automatically required extensive reconstructive surgery to repair the tear. Recently, the website for Andrews Institute for…
Under the Pennsylvania (PA) Workers’ Compensation Act, once your employer accepts your injury, then they must continue to pay weekly wage loss and/or medical benefits until a workers’ compensation judge gives permission to stop or you return to work earning as much as prior to your injury. Many injured workers…
