Most companies today allot a certain number of PTO (Paid Time Off) days or hours for their employees. However, many employees may suffer from a chronic illness that requires them to miss more work days than normally allowed. If you’re running out of paid sick days for the year, following these tips can help you balance chronic illness and work and may keep you out of financial hardship.
Get a Proper Diagnosis
You may assume that you’ll be fine with time, but you could be suffering more than you have to if you don’t get the correct diagnosis from a doctor. Your doctor may even be able to write a note to your employer explaining your situation if you have a proper diagnosis, and this may help you get extended sick pay. The information that you receive about your diagnosis from your doctor can also be used to let your employer know exactly how much more time you expect to miss from, and this can be effective in bridging better communications with your boss. Not only that, but getting an official diagnosis can make it a great deal easier to get the care you need to fully recover.
Track Your Triggers
Certain triggers may be behind your symptoms, and eliminating these triggers can allow you to recover faster. Allergies caused by certain foods and environmental factors often lead to chronic illnesses, and an allergist can test you to determine if you’re suffering from allergies. Food allergies and intolerances that aren’t life threatening are often overlooked as being symptoms of something completely unrelated. Because of this, it’s important to be aware of any history of auto-immune disorders or food intolerances in your family history. On the other hand, environmental factors such as workload and even flickering lights can trigger debilitating effects. If your chronic illness is related to stress, methods like yoga, meditation or counseling can help you maintain your mental and physical health. No matter what the cause, however, tracking the factors surrounding episodes of illness are important to help your doctor make a proper diagnosis.
Workers’ Compensation
Workers’ compensation (aka. workman’s comp) offers payments to employees who are temporarily unable to work because of a job-related injury. However, workers’ compensation is in fact more than just income insurance, because it compensates for economic loss (past and future), reimbursement or payment of medical and life expenses (functioning in this case as a form of health insurance), and benefits payable to the dependents of workers killed during employment (offering a form of life insurance). Workers compensation provides no coverage to those not working. Statistics have shown that the majority of disabilities occur while the injured person is not working and therefore is not covered by workers’ compensation.
Income Protection Insurance
Income Protection Insurance (IPI) is a type of insurance policy, designed to cover those who are unable to work due to illness or accident through no fault of their own. It is most common in the United Kingdom and Ireland. A similar product in U.S. would be called disability Insurance. However, in many countries disability insurance is different than in the U.S. and only applies to long term disability and results in the policyholder receiving a lump sum distribution rather than a monthly replacement for your regular income.
Short Term Disability
In contrast to Worker’s Comp insurance, Short-Term Disability is an insurance plan that is designed to replace a portion of your paycheck if you are unable to work due to an off-the-job sickness or accident. Short–term disability policies are private policies that employers can buy for their employees. Short–term disability insurance is designed to provide income to employees who become disabled due to sickness or an accident and are unable to work after an initial waiting period (generally, one to seven days).
Long-Term Disability
If you are still incapacitated, once your short-term disability insurance runs out you will need to be covered by either long-term disability insurance or a long term care policy. Generally these type of policies require that you are unable to do certain functions for yourself and/or unable to return to work. Also you would need to have had a certain amount of time elapse often 3 -6 months since the injury or incapacity occurred. At that point, you would become eligible for a certain amount of reimbursement. you may also qualify for Social Security disability coverage.
Seek Legal Guidance
Disability lawyers who are versed in social security matters can often help with getting compensation for chronically ill clients. An attorney will let you know if you’re eligible for social security benefits. If you qualify, your legal advisor will work hard to ensure that your social security payout covers as much of your income as possible. According to the Social Security Administration, one of the key factors that will determine whether you qualify for social security benefits is if your illness will significantly limit your ability to do work for at least 12 months. However, there are other qualifiers that can even allow you to get social security benefits while you are still working or during a recovery program.
Ask About Work from Home Options
Your boss may allow you to telecommute, working from home rather than making the trip all the way out to the office and back every day. The internet has made it possible for companies to remain productive by allowing employees who aren’t able to come into the office to work from home. You’ll need to be more self-disciplined and be stringent about keeping track of your work hours, but often the hardest part of working through a chronic illness is making it out of the house every day. By eliminating that aspect, you can make your work responsibilities much easier to complete.
Managing your chronic illness while still trying to work with limited sick days will be easier if you take the right steps. By talking openly with your boss, the two of you may be able to work out an agreement that benefits you both. Most importantly, make sure to reach out for the proper help in diagnosing and treating your condition so that you can recover rather than just endure.
You might also like:
- Long-Term Disability Benefits: How to Manage Finances after an Injury
- Medical Equipment Costs: How to Deal with Abrupt Healthcare Expenses
- Broken Cars, Broken Bones, and Broken Finances: How to Manage Your Money after an Accident
- After the Injury: How to Effectively Manage Medical Expenses
- A Series of Unfortunate Events: How Social Security Disability Can Help
