Temporary Partial Disability

Answer:

Last week, I was having a conversation with an employee who was able to go back to work, but at less than the full-time hours that they were typically working. I told them about a concept called temporary partial disability. Workers’ Compensation and employers want employees to return back to work, so there’s support within the system that, if you can work four out of your eight hours, you go back to work and the employer pays you for working four out of the eight hours. Now, what temporary partial disability does is it continues to pay for those other four hours that you’re still unable to work as a result of your disability. In this circumstance, the employee, like I said, could go back and work part-time four out of eight hours. They were going to do that for about a two-month period and then they were going to move up to six hours and not be able to work two out of the eight hours. I explained to the client that at that point, you’ll receive your two hours of pay extra until you’re released to go back to your full eight hours a day. At that point, you wouldn’t be receiving any temporary partial disability. That’s an area of benefits which contemplates that you can’t work your full eight hours, but you can work a partial workday and how you’re going to be compensated for that. If you have any questions regarding any disability payments that you’re receiving as a result of your Workers’ Compensation claim, feel free to give us a call. We’re happy to answer any questions that you may have.