If your claim for maintenance and cure is denied, there are a couple of things we recommend you do immediately.
- Write a letter to your company. Let them know how much your monthly expenses are and let them know that you’re not able to pay any of those bills unless they pay you maintenance.
- Go to a medical doctor who believes he needs to still treat you. Maintenance and cure only applies until you reach maximum cure or maximum improvement. This means that you’re only entitled to maintenance and cure until a medical doctor says that you have improved as much as you will be able to in your condition. So, one of the basic things that you need in order to get your maintenance and cure started or continued is reports from medical doctors saying that you still need medical treatment, and that you have not reached maximum cure or maximum improvement.
- Look into short-term or long-term disability policies. A lot of companies will discourage employees from applying for short-term/long-term disability. We absolutely disagree with that. If you feel you’re still injured and you have medical doctors supporting that, you should definitely use your short-term/long-term disability if you can.
If you want to learn more about maintenance and cure, visit our Maintenance and Cure Law page. You can also call our Louisiana maritime attorneys if you have any questions at all about your maintenance and cure claim, the denial of it or how you can possibly get it started again.
