Accident waiting to happen

Hunter1

OK, this is my second day back from vacation and this is waiting for me: Young (22) Part time employee who has been off work due to a non-work related back injury. A little more background: He lost health coverage due to dropping out of school and losing his parent's coverage. He has been advised by his surgeon that he requires surgery for a diagnosed "lumbar disc displacement". He intends to enter school full time in the fall, regain coverage under his parent's plan and have the surgery. He appears in obvious constant pain.

He wants to come back to work and today brought in a health condition report from his GP which releases him for work with ONLY the following restrictions: Cannot squat, walk, bend, or twist for more than 3 hrs/day. NO other restrictions.

He OBVIOUSLY is not disabled with those minimal restrictions, and we intend to get a second opinion, but any suggestions in the meantime?

juju

Personally, I would not get a second opinion. I would, however, make sure the doctor has seen a written job description detailing the physical duties. (We actually have a form we have the doctors sign that states they have read the job description.) The employee may not be disabled, but he sure seems risky to me.

We do not accomodate restrictions from non-WC injuries. This is partly because, as a non-profit, all our positions are budgeted and we simply cannot afford to pay someone to do the injured person's job AND pay the injured person to do a job that is NOT in our budget. The other reason we don't accomodate is, just as you are saying, we don't want to end up paying WC for a re-injury that was not originally WC related.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do!

Don D

Fully agree with juju. The title of your post has your answer; "Accident Waiting To Happen". It's doubtful that when he tries to get back on his parent's insurance that the insurance company will waive this pre-existing condition. But, that's iffy. My crystal ball says this young man may find out he has no insurance and might try to show that his injury was aggravated by his job with you. I would not put him back on. Tell him to reapply when he is able to work unrestricted.

Hunter1

Thanks to both of you. Sometimes you're too close to the forest to see the trees. I was worried about ADA and especially our state disability provisions which are more lenient than ADA, but for a temporary problem, you have pointed out the best solution.