What Is Maintenance & Cure?
Jason Itkin explains the benefits an injured seaman is owed regardless of fault: maintenance for living expenses like rent and utilities, and cure for medical bills until maximum medical improvement.
Attorney Jason Itkin explains what maintenance and cure actually covers for an injured offshore worker, and what to do when a company uses those benefits as leverage.
What the Company Owes You, Regardless of Fault
Maintenance is the money that keeps a roof over your head while you cannot work: rent or mortgage, utilities, and the bills that do not stop because you were hurt. Cure is your medical care, paid until you are better. Neither depends on proving anyone was at fault. And as Jason emphasizes, the company does not get to run your medical care: it does not choose your doctor, and it does not get to haggle over Medicare or insurance. It owes your medical bills. Our Jones Act lawyers enforce that.
“The company doesn’t get to choose your doctor, doesn’t get to haggle with you over Medicare or insurance or any of that stuff. The company owes your medical bills.”
When Companies Use Benefits as Leverage
Benefits are supposed to continue until an injured worker has plateaued, meaning they have recovered as much as they are going to. What happens instead, routinely, is that carriers cut benefits early to create pressure: accept a low offer, or see a company-friendly doctor who will clear you for work before you are ready and make the next injury more likely. Fighting that takes someone who knows these claims handlers and their practices. Most people never fight back, and the companies count on it.
“What we see all the time is that companies use maintenance and cure as leverage to starve somebody out, make them accept a low-ball offer, or force them to see a doctor who’s gonna rush them back to work.”
Full Transcript
A person injured offshore may have the right to receive what’s called maintenance and cure. The maintenance is the amount to receive a living wage so that, if you’re off work, the company still has got to pay you enough to put a roof over your head, pay your bills, pay your utilities. And the cure means that you get to have your medical bills paid until you are better.
And that the company doesn’t get to choose your doctor, doesn’t get to haggle with you over Medicare or insurance or any of that stuff. The company owes your medical bills.
Companies are not supposed to stop or cut someone off of maintenance and cure until they have plateaued, till they’ve gotten better. Unfortunately, what we see all the time is that companies use maintenance and cure as leverage to starve somebody out, make them accept a low-ball offer, or force them to see a doctor who’s gonna rush them back to work and make it more likely they get hurt again.
And so it’s really important, if a company is threatening to cut off your maintenance and cure, that you end up with an expert who understands what your rights are, what your remedies are, and what to do if a company plays games with your health and your life.
Because most people won’t fight back. They’ll accept it. They’ll hire a lawyer that’s not capable of fighting back or doesn’t know how to fight back, and then they end up getting away with it. It’s only when you have somebody who’s a real expert in the maritime law who can fight back against these folks, who actually know these maintenance and cure claims handlers and their shady practices, that you can really push back and make sure that you get what you’re entitled to, what your rights are under the law.
Call us, email us, text us. We’ll respond and hold the people who did it accountable and make sure that your family’s taken care of.
