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Gordon, Elias & Seely, L.L.P. - Maintenance
[GRAPHIC: Maintenance & Cure]
STEVE GORDON: Under Maritime Law, when a person is hurt, they're entitled to receive maintenance and cure. Let's talk about maintenance. Maintenance is, I guess, amount of money per day for what it would cost for your room and board onboard a vessel.
So for instance, if it's maybe $15 a day to compensate you for that room and board that you're missing because of your injury, that's what you'd get. Now, I have seen maintenance as low as $8 a day and I've seen it as high as maybe $35 a day. Whatever it is, it's not your daily salary, and it's insufficient to pay your bills.
However, it is supposed to be paid. Now, unfortunately, employers, maritime employers, do not pay you maintenance when you're hurt, not all of them. And some of them need to have their arm twisted, so to speak, to do that. And maintenance is supposed to be paid while you're receiving medical, that is, while you're not fit for duty.
And so then I want to move a little bit into, if you don't mind, into cure. Cure is basically medical care. And so you're supposed to also receive medical care paid for by your employer if you receive an injury on the job and you're a seaman. Obviously, companies don't do that all the time, and that's one of the reasons people seek out and obtain lawyers.
Now, cure is supposed to be until you reach what's called MMI. MMI is maximum medical improvement. So while you're getting your medical care, reaching your maximum medical rate of improvement, you're supposed to be receiving maintenance.
Now in a perfect world that would be awesome if everything worked like that. I suspect if you are watching this video, you've probably had an injury and you may be experiencing perhaps some not quite full payment on either one of those issues. If you're getting fully paid that's awesome and I think that that's a good thing.
The problem is, is sometimes the employer or the insurer for the employer wants to control the medical. That is, they'll send you to their doctors. They don't tell you, you have a choice to go to your own doctor. And, you know, I guess that raises another issue is, what's the difference between doctors? A doctor should be a doctor should be a doctor.
Well, if you're living in that world and you believe that, then you need to wake up. Because there are doctors out there, who, even though they're following their Hippocratic Oath, there are doctors out there that don't--how do I say--provide all the tests necessary to fully understand what your problem is. They'll do an x-ray. Let's say you slip and fall and you hurt your back. They'll do an x-ray to make sure you don't have any broken bones but--and they'll order physical therapy and maybe give you some pain medications or muscle relaxers.
But, do they do an MRI? Because an MRI, which stands for magnetic resonance imaging, an MRI is, is necessary to properly diagnose whether or not you have a disc herniation. It looks at the soft tissue in between the vertebral bodies, whereas an x-ray looks at the vertebral bodies.
So, you know, a company doctor is much less apt to order an MRI as opposed to an independent doctor. So, at Gordon and Elias we make sure that you go to independent doctors who fully assess your injuries.
[GRAPHIC: Gordon, Elias & Seely, L.L.P. Jones Act Injury Attorneys Call Toll-Free 800-773-6770 www.offshoreinjuries.com]
