Can I Still Get Comp Benefits When I Return to Work?

Yes, you may still receive Florida workers’ compensation benefits after returning to work, particularly if your injury limits your duties or reduces your earnings. Temporary partial disability benefits may apply when you earn less than 80% of your pre-injury average weekly wage. The benefit generally equals 80% of the difference between your current earnings and 80% of your prior wage.

Florida requires most employers to provide workers’ compensation coverage to their employees. Workers’ compensation benefits provide both medical treatment and wage replacement for employees injured in the course of their job duties. This includes scenarios where an injured employee can return to work.

Different Types of Workers’ Comp Benefits

There are actually several types of workers’ comp benefits. For instance, if you can’t work at all after a work-related injury, you will receive temporary total disability benefits.

But if you can return to work under medical restrictions or otherwise can’t earn as much as you did before the injury, you may be eligible for temporary partial disability benefits.

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Temporary Partial Disability Benefits

Under state statutes, an injured worker may receive temporary partial disability if they earn less than 80% of their pre-injury “average weekly wage.” The benefit equals 80% of the difference between what they earn now and 80% of their pre-injury wage.

To put this into context, let’s take the hypothetical example of a Florida woman who earned an average of $500 per week prior to suffering a workplace injury. After receiving medical care, her treating physician clears her to return to work but with restricted duties. Because of these restrictions, the woman now earns only $300 per week. So how much is she entitled to from workers’ compensation?

As discussed above, you start by calculating 80% of the pre-accident weekly wage. That is, 80% of $500, which is $400. Next, you calculate the difference between this amount and the post-accident wage — $400 less $300, or $100. Finally, you take 80% of that difference ($80), and that represents how much the employee is entitled to in replacement wages under workers’ compensation.

It’s very hard in this state for an employer to easily terminate an employee out on workers’ comp. If I represent an employer, I tell them never to terminate someone on their books. Just wait and see what happens when they come back.

How Long Can You Receive Temporary Partial Disability Benefits?

By state law, an employee may receive temporary partial disability benefits for up to 104 weeks (or about two years). A separate 260-week limit applies to temporary total disability benefits, not temporary partial disability benefits.

“That was key,” says Barry A. Stein, a workers’ comp and personal injury attorney at De Cardenas, Freixas, Stein & Zachary in Miami. “With only two years, it can be a problem because you might not be better. But now, if you’re not better by five years, the reality is you’re not likely to recover the complete ability to work subsequent to that.”

The employer’s workers’ compensation insurance carrier must typically notify an employee of their possible eligibility for temporary partial disability benefits within five days of receiving notice that the employee can return to some degree of work under medical restriction. Benefits begin seven days after the end of the employee’s first biweekly period returning to work.

You May Be Entitled To Additional Help Under the FMLA

Even if you can return to work under medical restriction after a workers’ compensation case, your employer is not obligated to hold your prior job open for you.

However, the Family and Medical Leave Act may provide eligible employees of covered employers up to 12 workweeks of unpaid, job-protected leave during a 12-month period for a serious health condition, subject to statutory limitations. “It has nothing to do with comp,” Stein says, “but it certainly has interplay with workers’ comp.”

You Cannot Be Fired or Retaliated Against for Filing Workers’ Comp

You also cannot be legally fired for filing a workers’ compensation claim. “It’s in violation of 440.205, which says you can’t threaten, discharge, or otherwise retaliate for the valid pursuit of a workers’ comp case,” Stein adds.

“It’s very hard in this state for an employer to easily terminate an employee out on workers’ comp. If I represent an employer, I tell them never to terminate someone on their books. Just wait and see what happens when they come back.”

If you can’t do the same type of work you did before your workers’ compensation injury, you may be eligible for free reemployment services from the Florida Division of Workers’ Compensation.

“One requirement is that the individual has to be able to earn more than their pre-accident wages, so the re-training has to give them the ability to make more, which can be difficult,” Stein says. “The second is, as I understand it, there’s not a whole lot of money available for these services. I used to help clients do this all the time, but I’ve never had anyone approved.”

These services include job counseling and retraining.

Contacting a Workers’ Comp Attorney

If you have any questions about this or any other issue related to temporary partial disability benefits or workers’ compensation settlements, contact a qualified Florida workers’ compensation lawyer right away.