… Continued from Part 3…
Hopefully now, you have had an independent medical evaluation by a quality federal doctor (hopefully FedDoctor was helpful!). Once you get your report back, it is time to go to work.
In order to get a good handle on how to calculate what your award might be, the next step is to understand what the OWCP List of Scheduled Members looks like. The federal workers compensation office uses this list of body parts to value each individual section of your body based on its importance to the whole body. Remember, this is very different from Whole Person Impairment (WPI) but uses the same type of principles.
For instance, an entire leg is valued at 288 weeks of compensation. A toe (other than great toe) is only worth 16 weeks. Here is a list of the other body parts and their corresponding weeks of compensation:
Arm 312 weeks
Fourth Finger 15 weeks
Leg 288 weeks
Hearing (1 ear) 52 weeks
Hand 244 weeks
Hearing (both) 200 weeks
Foot 205 weeks
Breast 52 weeks
Eye 160 weeks
Kidney (1) 156 weeks
Thumb 75 weeks
Larynx 160 weeks
First Finger 46 weeks
Lung (1) 156 weeks
Great Toe 38 weeks
Penis/Female Sex Organs 205 weeks
Second Finger 30 weeks
Testicle/Ovary (1) 52 weeks
Third Finger 25 weeks
Tongue 160 weeks
Toe (other) 16 weeks
The new impairment rating that your doctor provided to you is multiplied by the body part’s number of weeks of compensation. If your doctor assigned a 10% impairment to your leg, that would correspond to 28.8 weeks of compensation.
Your compensation rate is the same as your lost wage reimbursement rate. 75% of pay if you have dependents, and 66% if you do not. Multiply that weekly comp rate by the number of weeks of compensation from your impairment rating and body part and voila! You have your schedule award amount.
Now comes the hard part, submitting your claim to OWCP and hoping it is approved for the full amount! A good doctor, like the ones on this site, will be helpful. The stronger the report, the better your chances are of getting the claim approved for the highest amount of impairment.
Good luck, and don’t be afraid to ask an attorney for help. This is not legal advice, but it may be a good idea to get some!
Tags: 6th edition ama guides, federal doctor, federal workers comp doctor, federal workers compensation doctor, owcp doctor, schedule award doctor