Worker's Comp Work Restriction Time

dbennett

Help! We currently do not have a policy in place to cover wage transition when an employee returns to work with restrictions from a worker's comp injury. At present, we continue to pay the employee the same rate of pay regardless of the pay rate of the lower level position they are performing. An attorney has told us we should implement a policy about this as well as length of time we will accommadate such restrictions. We are a mfg facility with approx. 70 ee's located in TN. If you can help with this, please e-mail sample policy to me at [email]dbennett@fontainefl.com[/email]. Thanks a bunch!!!

Margaret Morford

I agree with your attorney about limiting the amount of time you will permit light duty, but disagree about the pay rate change. The purpose of light duty is to return employees to productivity and not allow them to sit at home collecting a WC check. Don't give employees a dis-incentive for getting back to work. If you do, they will exaggerate their symptoms to stay off work completely. If you limit the amount of time they can stay on light duty, the wage difference becomes insignificant when balanced against your WC costs.

I have a light duty policy that limits the time an employee can stay on light duty that I'd be happy to send you if you will e-mail me.

Margaret Morford
theHRedge
615-371-8200
[email]mmorford@mleesmith.com[/email]
[url]http://www.thehredge.net[/url]

mwild31

I agree with Margaret. You can actually hurt your experience factor by paying less as the employee generally re-coup's the cost through Loss of Earning Power (Washington State term's). Here's the example: we had an employee that was making $17.00 per hour when she was fired from our organization for her treatment of a customer. 2 weeks later, she filed a worker comp. claim. Her injury was carpel tunnel. When she was finally cleared by her doctor to go back to work, she was assigned a voc. counselor. The counselor was not very helpful and so, 8 months into the claim, we really felt we had no choice, but had to offer her a job to get her off of Time Loss (WA term). We offered her a bonafide light duty position (with job analysis) at minimum wage. Surprisingly, she accepted the job - if she had not, her Time Loss days would have been over. The Department of Labor (WA State) in these types of situations in which a reduction in pay is involved, augments the difference of what she was making near time of injury ($17) to the current wage ($7.01) = Loss of Earning Power (LEP). LEP works exactly the same as Time Loss as it relates to our experience factor - it makes it go up :-) The good news is that by bringing the worker back to work - the amount charged against our experience factor is lower - as it is the difference between her paycheck and her former wage - instead of the entire Time Loss amount.

Kudos for trying to bring the worker back to a light duty position - I swear by it.

LindaS

I agree with Mwild31 regarding the wage loss. If you return the employee to a position that pays less than their previous position, they may continue to get TPD (temporary partial disability) payments which will increase the cost of that claim and possibly affect your ratings. Best bet is to return them to a temporary, light duty position with no loss of pay. Make sure the insurance company continues monitoring the employee so they don't stay in that position longer than absolutely necessary.