It used to be that when someone got injured on the job and went to a doctor, anyone with significant pain or injuries was immediately taken off work. It was assumed the best way for injured employees to recover was to have rest and time away from work for the body to heal.
It is certainly logically a truism that it is necessary for the body to be away from whatever caused the injury and avoid repeating that same unfortunate circumstance to promote recovery and healing. But the conventional medical wisdom is now that it is best for employees, all things being equal, to have the chance to continue working.
I certainly can resonate with this as an attorney representing injured employees. I often tell people to imagine you were not hurt, but forced to live your life as follows. If you were to be forced to be away from the job that gives regular meeting in purpose to your workday life. Forced to be away from the friends and social network around your job. Forced to have your benefits taken away. And forced to spend your days either attending medical appointments or secluded in your home under fear that you were being watched by a suspicious insurance company for fear that you might be enjoying yourself. You would find yourself out of shape and in bad physical condition after several months even if you had started in perfectly fine health.
So all things being equal, it’s best if someone can keep working even though they may have been injured. The rub is in that tricky little phrase, all things being equal. Most of the time, all things aren’t equal. Far from it.
So what I want to briefly explore here is what doctors don’t understand about this equation.
Doctors often don’t understand that employers assume that anything a doctor doesn’t say an injured employee can’t do, they must be able to do.
Employers lose their minds when an employee gets injured. What I mean by that is they stop using logic and common sense. When an employee is injured on the job in Texas, the treating physician is required to complete a form 73 regarding the work status. That form gives three options in broad form. The employee cannot return to work, the employee can return to work, without restriction, or the employer can return to work, but only with certain restrictions.
The form then gives detailed options for the doctor to check on activities related to posture, motion lifting/carrying, miscellaneous, medications, and time duration of each activity.
What doctors don’t understand is that while it may be common sense that if you check the box that the employee must use crutches at all times, the employee logically cannot be climbing ladders, many employers will assume that if the box forbidding climbing ladders is not checked, the employee must be able to do it. Similarly, It should be common sense that if an employee is limited to a certain number of pounds of lifting or carrying, that the employee with a back injury should not be bending and stooping with those weights, failure of the doctor to check those specific boxes will often result in that employee being assigned to do precisely the activities that will aggravate the injury.
The takeaway from this is for both the employee and the doctor. Not to mention the employer.
For the employee, you need to understand that your doctor is going to assume that your employer will have common sense and the doctor normally will not take 45 minutes to exhaustively detail the restrictions on the work status form. Employees need to be ready to go back to the doctor, often with the assistance and advice of an attorney, to get clarified exactly what the parameters of the restrictions are.
Doctors need to be aware that the responsibility is on them to accurately defined the restrictions and not leave any room for ambiguity on the part of the employer. And when I say employers don’t use common sense, I’m certainly not referring to all employers. The vast majority take good care of their employees and want to do right by them. Sometimes they genuinely don’t understand how having an employee do an activity that isn’t mentioned on the work status form violates the spirit of the restrictions. And for the small minority of employers who are out to make injured employees miserable enough to quit, doctors need to be prepared for that and protect their patients from harm.
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