#157 Georgia Workers' Compensation Lawyer - If I am on Light Duty? Do I have to Return to work?

CALL US ►  912-208-2992TEXT US ► 912-233-1100EMAIL US ► [email protected] •  Website•  Facebook•  Pinterest If I'm out on workers comp, do I have to go back to work? Hello, my name is Ty Wilson with Georgia Workers’ Compensation Attorney practicing law in the State of Georgia. And our question is, “If you are out of work on Workers’ Comp., do you have to go back to work? Well, that is a tricky question because it is possible that you do have to go back to work. It depends upon the employer. If the employer says I cannot have you back in my job, without you being at full duty, well, then you're not going to return back until the doctor releases you to full Duty. However, the trickier area is whenever a doctor releases you to light duty. Then the question is, “Can the employer accommodate your light duty restrictions?” If they can, there is a chance that they can bring you back to work. It's What's called the “240-process” “The Return to Work Process” under Georgia law. So there's this form 240 in which the employer will List out what your job duties would be. The lifting and how often and so forth. And then they would submit that to your authorized treating physician or the main doctor on your workers compensation claim. And ask that doctor to sign off on this job to return you back to work. If they do not do this returning back to work is strictly optional, but if the employer wants you back at work, there is always the possibility that they will ask you to come back to work. Keep in mind, the insurance company is who pays you whenever you're out on workers compensation, not the employer. So it can create some messy situations when you're dealing with health insurance and other benefits because your health insurance benefits are taken out whenever you are earning money through the employer, not through workers comp. So if you're making you're getting paid through workers comp, then you need to make arrangements to make sure that you still have health insurance coverage if that's something that's applicable to you. We hope that you found this information helpful, and we'll see you on the next video.