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… 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!

… Continued from Part 2…

In the 6th edition, it specifically requires you to be at MMI before the impairment can be rated. Have patience! Getting the rating appointment with a good doctor could be a waste of time if you haven’t allowed an adequate amount of healing time to elapse.

Federal workers compensation is difficult enough without having to redo your work or take more time to see a doctor. It is important to try to get it as right as you can on the first try. Once the fight begins, you will benefit from having all of your ducks in a row.

FedDoctor is the only place online to find quality federal doctors all over the country that help the federal employee! Using this resource and sharing it with your friends and co-workers can net you more money when it comes time to file the schedule award claim.

So now that you have reached MMI, schedule your visit with a qualified doctor to have your impairment rated. You can use your treating physician, but make sure that they fully understand the type of report they are generating.

As we discussed previously, the rating must be done in accordance with the AMA Guides 6th edition. Not all doctors know how to use this version as most states have chosen not to adopt this version. In addition to being done using the 6th edition, federal workers compensation schedule awards are not done using Whole Person Impairment (WPI), but rather stay at the local level using Regional Impairment.

To explain the difference, here is an example. If you have a 10% loss of use to your upper extremity (UE) that may equate to a 2% loss of the whole person. The difference is clear: 2% WPI vs. 10% UE.

OWCP does not accept WPI ratings at all. If your report is done using WPI, you have a significant chance of having the entire report thrown out by the district medical advisor in your OWCP regional office.

Your impairment rating should be left in the regional format. In addition, it is generally not helpful to have your doctor rate additional parts of your body that are not included on that claim number. If you have multiple claims, have separate reports done. OWCP often has different claims examiners responsible for different claims and they won’t necessarily both get a copy of the report. This seems like a minor detail, but it can cause confusion and delay or ruin your schedule award claim.

To be continued…

… Continued from Part 1…

So if your physician is not a federal doctor (a doctor who simply understands the differences between federal and state workers compensation law), it is important that you know and understand schedule award calculations.

Now that you understand that you are not going to forfeit any future compensation benefit rights, it is now time to understand when and why a schedule award may be the next logical step in your claim process.

Federal workers compensation laws require that you reach Maximum Medical Improvement (MMI) before you get your impairment rated by a doctor (Read more about Maximum Medical Improvement here). MMI is determined when your physician determines that your recovery has plateaued. This doesn’t mean that you will never, ever get any better, simply that you are unlikely to substantially improve over the next twelve months.

If you are about to have surgery, MMI is usually not reached until approximately one year has elapsed after the operation, especially if the nature of your injury is neurological.

The rules that doctors follow when evaluating an impairment are laid out by the American Medical Association. The AMA Guidelines to Rating a Permanent Impairment 6th Edition are the most recent version of those rules and are the ones adopted by the OWCP (read more about the AMA 6th Ed. here).

These are likely different than the version used in your home state, another reason why FedDoctor is so helpful to injured federal employees. We help you locate federal doctors around the country that understand the 6th edition and how it relates to your schedule award. There may be one in your back yard!

OWCP claimants are allowed to travel to see a doctor to have their impairment rated for a schedule award claim. While OWCP may not reimburse you for travel expenses, you are allowed to have a one time visit with for an independent medical evaluation without preauthorization and without having to change treating physicians.

To be continued…