The workers’ compensation system is designed to make sure that an employee who sustains a work-related injury receives compensation for the injury. This means not only wage replacement, but also the employer or the employer’s insurance company, will be required to pay for the reasonable medical expenses related to the injury. The type of disability that an employee sustains as a result of the injury will have an enormous impact on the type and duration of benefits that he or she is entitled to receive. Accordingly, understanding how disability is determined can be an important step toward protecting your business.
There are four different types of disability: temporary total disability, temporary partial disability, permanent total disability, and permanent temporary disability. Only a doctor can make the determination as to a worker’s type of disability. During the workers’ compensation process, the injured employee will be seeing medical professionals not only for the treatment of his or her injuries, but also for assessment.
An employee may be entitled to temporary disability benefits where he or she must miss at least three days of work or where he or she must be hospitalized overnight. Again, only a doctor can make the determination as to whether or not these courses of treatment are necessary. Moreover, only a doctor can make the determination that a worker is totally temporarily disabled, meaning he or she is totally unable to work for a temporary amount of time, or that he or she is only partially temporarily disabled, which would mean he or she is still able to work, but in a limited capacity.
By contrast, permanent partial disability would mean that the injured worker will never be able to work at the full capacity that he or she was able to do before the worker sustained the industrial injury. The injured worker will still be able to work, but not in the same manner or to the same extent. Permanent total disability means the injury results in the injured worker’s total inability to work in that field ever again. A doctor will diagnose a permanent disability only after he or she makes the determination that the worker will not be able to heal any further.
Determining disability is a nuanced process. Call us today so we can talk with you about what your business can expect from the process.