By: Russell Keener  —  February 11, 2011
 

If your doc­tor has you totally writ­ten out of work or has you writ­ten to restric­tions so severe that your employer can­not or will not pro­vide you a job, you are enti­tled to weekly income ben­e­fits. How­ever, if your doc­tor writes you back to work on some type of lim­ited duty, your employer will likely sub­mit a job descrip­tion Geor­gia Work­ers Com­pen­sa­tion FormWC240a to your autho­rized treat­ing physi­cian (ATP) for review. If your doc­tor agrees to allow you to try the work, you will be asked to come back to the employer and try to work within the doctor’s restric­tions (nor­mally this pro­ce­dure is done with what is called a Geor­gia Work­ers Com­pen­sa­tion Form WC240.

If you refuse to go back and try a job your doc­tor has agreed for you to try, you run the very real risk of los­ing your Geor­gia Work­ers Com­pen­sa­tion Ben­e­fits. So, NOT going back to try a job your doc­tor has approved for you to try is a bad idea.

If after try­ing the job for about a week or less you real­ize can­not do the job, tell your employer and he will be required to auto­mat­i­cally restart your weekly ben­e­fits(TTD Ben­e­fits). Then, the employer/insurer has the option of tak­ing your case to court to try to prove to the judge that you can do the job. If you wait too long before inform­ing your employer you can­not do the work, you run the risk of hav­ing all your income ben­e­fits stopped and at which time YOU will be the one fil­ing to go to court to prove to the judge that you can­not do the job.

Trust me, you do not want to be the one with the bur­den of proof. It’s bet­ter if the employer/insurer has the bur­den of proof at the hearing.

So, if your employer has filed a valid WC240 and the doc­tor says you can try the job, by all means, go try the job. If you can do it, fine. If you can­not, you need to try to fig­ure that out within the first week and inform your employer or pos­si­bly run the risk of los­ing your income ben­e­fits and hav­ing to file for a hear­ing which will likely take many months before you actu­ally get in front of a judge. All the while, you are with­out TTD income benefits.