If you've been so badly hurt at work that you can no longer work at your job, you may be offered several options. In most cases, your employer's workers' comp will attempt to "make you whole" by providing medical care, money, vocational rehabilitation and more. In some cases, you may be offered a job. Read on to learn how to deal with workers' comp suitable job offers.
What to know about the suitable job offer
The overall goal of workers' comp is to get you to back to work and off benefits, and even workers who cannot return to their previous jobs are evaluated to determine the possibility of working at another position. In most cases, you must accept the job as long as it falls within the guidelines, or risk losing your benefits or having them reduced. Being offered a suitable job helps the workers' comp carrier to reduce the cost of claims and make their premiums more affordable for employers.
For example, consider a flight attendant who suffered a bad back injury during some in-flight turbulence. This flight attendant has a permanent injury and can no longer work at the same job, but may be offered a job doing public relations for the corporate office of the airline instead.
What is a suitable job?
You may be wondering how a job fits into the category of "suitable" so here are some guidelines to keep in mind:
1. The offer must be made in "good faith". This just means that your employer should never offer you a job that you would never consider accepting; it has to be appropriate for you and your condition.
2. The offer must be for a position that does not violate the work restrictions in place because of your disability. Using the former flight attendant example above, the employer could not expect the employee to work standing up at a customer service counter if they cannot do so due to the back problem.
3. In some states, the work must be related to or in the same general field as your former job.
4. The offer must account for education, job skills, job training and more. In other words, you should not have to return to college to acquire the skills needed to do the job.
5. The offer must be for a job that is within a certain distance of the workers' home.
6. The offer must be for a job that is within a certain percentage of the wages you were previously earning. For example, the job must pay at least 85% of what your former job paid.
Earning partial workers' comp benefits
If the suitable job offer is for a job that pays less than you were making before your injury, you may be able to get a partial amount of pay to help make up for that gap in pay. It may not be as much as you were making, however.
If you are having trouble with your workers' comp benefits, speak to a workers' compensation lawyer today.
Share16 April 2018
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