South Florida workers injured on the job often face carriers that may question the severity of their injuries, dispute the work-relatedness of their claims, and delay payments, hoping that financial pressure will prompt premature settlements.
A Miami workers’ compensation lawyer represents injured employees through benefit claims, appeals denied medical treatment, fights delayed wage replacement, and litigates disputes when insurance carriers refuse authorization for necessary care.
If your Miami workplace injury claim faces denial, treatment authorization delays, or wage benefit disputes, contact Your Insurance Attorney today for a free case review. Our Miami office serves injured workers throughout Miami-Dade County, from downtown to Miami Beach, Hialeah, Doral, Homestead, and Coral Gables. Se habla español.
Miami’s economy runs on hospitality, construction, healthcare, logistics, and port operations. After an injury, workers may find themselves facing adjusters who dispute whether the injury arose from job duties, challenge whether a construction fall occurred during work hours, and argue that a warehouse back injury stems from a pre-existing condition rather than years of heavy lifting.
Your Insurance Attorney has recovered over $1 billion across more than 75,000 cases, including extensive workers’ compensation disputes where carriers deny legitimate claims. Our workers’ comp attorney in Miami knows how South Florida insurers minimize payouts and what evidence forces them to pay benefits Florida law requires.
We represent injured workers across Miami-Dade County’s diverse employment sectors, including airport and port employees, construction crews building high-rises in Brickell and Edgewater, hospitality staff at South Beach hotels, and healthcare workers at Jackson Memorial and Baptist Health facilities. Our familiarity with Miami’s major employers, local medical providers, and workers’ compensation judges serving South Florida provides practical advantages when building cases.
Our team coordinates directly with authorized treating physicians to document injury severity, clarify work restrictions, and obtain medical narratives supporting benefit claims. When carriers schedule independent medical examinations, we prepare clients for these encounters and secure rebuttal opinions from qualified specialists who carefully review complete medical histories rather than relying on limited file reviews.
Under Florida Statutes § 440.34, workers’ compensation attorney fees must be approved by a Judge of Compensation Claims and are generally calculated as a percentage of the benefits your attorney secures, subject to statutory limits. In some situations, the employer or carrier may be ordered to pay your attorney’s fees in addition to your benefits; in others, fees may be paid from the benefits awarded. You will not owe court-approved fees unless your attorney secures benefits or a recovery for you.
South Florida’s employment landscape creates specific injury patterns tied to dominant industries. Workers’ compensation claims we handle throughout Miami include:
Hotel housekeepers develop shoulder and back injuries from repetitive bed-making and lifting, restaurant workers sustain burns and cuts from kitchen equipment, and cruise line employees experience slip-and-fall accidents, repetitive stress injuries, and heat-related illnesses working in cramped shipboard conditions.
Miami’s constant development produces falls from scaffolding and building heights, electrical shocks from live wiring, equipment malfunctions involving power tools and heavy machinery, struck-by incidents when materials fall, and heat exhaustion from working in South Florida’s climate without adequate breaks.
PortMiami and cargo operations create forklift accidents, heavy lifting injuries causing herniated discs, crush injuries from shipping containers, repetitive motion injuries from constant cargo handling, and vehicle accidents in loading zones.
Miami’s hospitals and nursing homes employ workers who lift patients repeatedly, contract infectious diseases, experience needlestick injuries, and sustain back trauma from assisting residents with mobility needs in understaffed facilities.
Miami International Airport baggage handlers, maintenance crews, and ground transportation workers experience back injuries from lifting luggage, vehicle accidents on tarmacs and access roads, and slip-and-fall accidents on wet surfaces.
Carpal tunnel syndrome from computer work, slip-and-fall accidents on wet floors during Miami’s rainy season, and lifting injuries moving inventory affect workers throughout downtown Miami offices and shopping districts in Aventura, Dadeland, and Dolphin Mall.
Florida’s workers’ compensation system requires prompt injury reporting and treatment with authorized physicians, creating procedural requirements that become denial grounds when not followed precisely. Our Miami personal injury lawyers help with your workers’ comp claim and can assist with a third-party liability suit if applicable.
Catastrophic workplace accidents produce injuries requiring years of medical care and permanent disability benefits that insurance carriers may fight aggressively to minimize.
These catastrophic injuries create substantial medical costs and long-term disability that insurance carriers scrutinize intensely, disputing treatment necessity and permanent impairment ratings that determine benefit amounts.
Florida’s workers’ compensation system provides specific benefits designed to cover medical care and replace lost income during recovery.
Florida workers’ comp covers medically necessary treatment for work injuries, including emergency care, hospital stays, surgery, medications, physical therapy, and durable medical equipment. Medical benefits typically have no deductibles, and care can continue as long as it remains medically necessary under Florida law, though carriers may challenge the need for certain services through utilization controls.
Injuries preventing work during recovery trigger TTD benefits typically based on two-thirds (66 2/3%) of average weekly wages, subject to Florida’s maximum and minimum limits. Benefits continue until maximum medical improvement or return to work.
Returning to modified duty, earning less than pre-injury wages, triggers TPD. TPD benefits are calculated using a statutory formula that generally equals 80% of the difference between 80% of your average weekly wage and your post-injury earnings.
After reaching maximum medical improvement, authorized treating physicians assign impairment ratings using the Impairment Guidelines adopted by the Florida Division of Workers’ Compensation, determining compensation for permanent physical limitations.
Ongoing wage benefits when an injury meets Florida’s PTD criteria, subject to statutory requirements and caps.
Insurance carriers control benefit approval and payment, creating conflicts where their financial interests oppose injured workers’ needs for comprehensive care and full wage replacement.
Actions following workplace injuries directly affect claim outcomes. Florida law imposes strict requirements that, if not satisfied, can become grounds for denial.
Report immediately. Notify your supervisor about your injury as soon as it occurs. Florida requires written notice within 30 days of accidents. Delayed reporting gives carriers ammunition to question work-relatedness and may result in claim denial.
Seek authorized medical care. Your employer must provide a list of authorized physicians. Choose from this panel and attend all appointments.Emergency treatment receives automatic authorization, but follow-up care requires authorized providers.
Document thoroughly. Keep detailed records of accident circumstances, witness information, supervisor conversations, medical appointments, treatment recommendations, and all carrier correspondence.
Follow medical advice completely. Attend appointments, take prescribed medications, and complete therapy programs. Carriers monitor compliance and use missed appointments to argue that injuries lack severity.
Review before signing. Insurance adjusters present settlement agreements and medical releases affecting your rights. Have legal counsel review all documents before signing anything.
Florida’s workers’ compensation system creates numerous opportunities for carriers to delay, deny, or minimize legitimate claims.
Carriers deny by arguing injuries didn’t arise from employment, questioning whether accidents occurred during work duties, alleging pre-existing conditions caused symptoms, or claiming delayed reporting indicates questionable work-relatedness.
Authorized physicians recommend MRIs, surgery, or ongoing therapy, but carriers deny authorization claiming treatments aren’t medically necessary, forcing injured workers into appeals and independent examinations.
Carriers delay temporary disability payments hoping financial pressure forces premature return to work or acceptance of inadequate settlements when bills pile up and income stops.
Carriers schedule examinations with doctors who review records briefly and conclude workers can return to full duty despite treating physicians’ restrictions, creating conflicting medical opinions that favor insurance company positions.
Adjusters contact injured workers directly during vulnerable moments offering lump-sum settlements that fall short of full claim value, buying out future medical and disability benefits for inadequate compensation.
Despite legal protections, some employers terminate, demote, or create hostile environments after workers file claims, requiring separate legal action beyond workers’ compensation proceedings.
Some claims proceed without complications. But, legal representation can be crucial when carriers deny claims, delay treatment authorization, pay benefits incorrectly, schedule independent examinations to minimize injuries, offer inadequate settlements, or when employers retaliate for filing. Attorneys provide access to medical experts, procedural knowledge, and advocacy skills, fighting for fair resolutions.
Florida requires written notice to your employer within 30 days of your workplace injury or within 30 days of when you should reasonably have known a gradual injury arose from work. Missing this deadline can result in claim denial regardless of injury severity or clear work-relatedness. Report injuries immediately to protect your rights.
When carriers deny treatment authorization that your authorized treating physician recommends, you can challenge this decision through Florida’s workers’ compensation dispute process. File a petition for benefits specifically requesting the denied treatment, prepare for mediation where carriers sometimes reverse denials, face formal proceedings, and if necessary, proceed to a hearing before a Judge of Compensation Claims.
Florida allows lump-sum settlements that resolve workers’ compensation claims through one-time payments, rather than ongoing benefits. Settlements can be partial, resolving specific disputed benefits while leaving others open, or full and final, closing all past and future benefit rights permanently. Before accepting any settlement, consider whether the amount adequately covers future medical needs, accounts for permanent disability, and compensates for lost earning capacity.
Florida workers’ compensation covers aggravation of pre-existing conditions when work duties cause symptoms to worsen or require new treatment. You must demonstrate through medical evidence that work activities caused your condition to deteriorate beyond its baseline state, requiring treatment you didn’t need before. Detailed medical records comparing your condition before and after the work-related aggravation, combined with physician opinions explaining causation, help prove these claims despite carrier resistance.
Yes. Florida operates a no-fault workers’ compensation system. Injured workers do not have to prove that their employer was negligent or at fault for causing the accident to receive benefits.
Benefits are generally available as long as the injury arose out of and occurred in the course and scope of employment. In exchange for this, the no-fault system typically prevents an employee from suing their employer in civil court for covered work injuries, except in rare instances of intentional harm.
The focus remains on compensating for the work-related injury, not assigning blame.
Florida law calculates the Average Weekly Wage (AWW) using a specific formula based on the 13 weeks of earnings immediately preceding your injury.
If you worked at least 90% of those 13 weeks, the carrier divides your total gross earnings by 13 to determine AWW. If you worked less than 90 percent of that time, or if the calculation is unfair, the law provides other methods.
These methods may involve comparing your earnings to a similar employee’s earnings or using the full-time weekly wage you were scheduled to receive. The calculated AWW determines the two-thirds (66 2/3%) benefit rate for lost wages.
Workers’ compensation claims often start with promises—employers assure you everything will be handled, adjusters sound sympathetic on initial calls, and the system appears straightforward. Then reality sets in. Treatment authorization requests go unanswered for weeks. Wage replacement checks arrive late or not at all. The independent examiner your carrier selected spends minutes reviewing your case before concluding you can return to full duty, contradicting months of documented restrictions from your treating physician.
These delays and denials aren’t always administrative errors. Sometimes, they’re calculated strategies insurance carriers use to exhaust your patience and financial reserves.
Contact Your Insurance Attorney today for a free consultation about your Miami workers’ compensation case. Call to speak with advocates who fight insurance carriers throughout Miami, Miami Beach, Hialeah, Doral, Homestead, Coral Gables, and all of Miami-Dade County. Se habla español. No recovery, no fee.
2601 South Bayshore Drive 5th Floor
Miami, FL 33133
Ph: 888-570-5677
We truly care about getting the best results for you. Our goal is to help you through powerful representation from start to finish. We work with clients all over the states of Florida, Georgia, Colorado, North Carolina, and California.
