Ways to Assess Payment

There is a lack of federal guidelines about workers’ compensation benefits. There is no clear-cut or mandated method for figuring out how much a worker should be paid for a disability, whether temporary or permanent. It is important to understand how some different states go about determining these settlement payments because they are usually different from state to state.

The broad method of doing this can be broken down into four main categories. They are:

• Impairment-based. The impairment-based approach determines a set amount to be given to an injured or disabled worker based on the severity of the impairment, with no regard for any relative earning level or future potential.
• Earning capacity. The loss of earning capacity method tries to quantify how much the worker will lose in future earning capacity due to the injury or impairment, and the payment will be based on that number.
• Wage loss. This is a much simpler way to approach the problem, as it simply repays the worker for the wages lost up to a certain point with no consideration of future losses or impairment-based compensation.
• Combination (bifurcated). If the worker has gone back to work at a similar compensation level as before, then the payment is based on impairment. If they have a lower wage, then the payment is based on lost wages and earning capacity.

Contact Us

If you or someone you know has been injured at work, it is important to understand your state’s approach to workers’ compensation payments. For more information, contact the Pennsylvania workers’ compensation lawyers of Lowenthal & Abrams, P.C. by calling 610-667-7511.