Total Permanent Disability Research Articles

Designing a Safety Net for Disabled Employees

Lois, a Senior Clerk Typist exhibits bizarre behavior that upsets her co-workers and results in severely curtailing the office's productivity. Management wanted to fire her. Lois' lawyer insists that management make some reasonable accommodation. When the case found its way to the mediator, he found that neither side could talk to one another without occasioning verbal and emotional fireworks. After individually discussing the facts with the parties, the mediator found that the employee had worked for nine years and nine months. She needed three months to her pension and, thus, become eligible for the company's Disability Retirement Plan that provided for an annuity of 40 percent of the average of Lois' last three years' salary. In addition, Lois would receive full medical insurance and a term life insurance policy at one and one-half times her present income. Management confided that it would do anything to rid itself of this problem employee. Lois' lawyer acknowledged that her client needed care to treat medically diagnosed schizophrenia. The mediator suggested that the employee work three more months to vest her pension. Both parties agreed. Lois worked three months at home performing her normal clerical duties. Then, she retired. Does this case sound familiar? Wouldn't you want to help someone who is ill by designing a safety net instead terminating their employment? The Americans With Disabilities Act requires an employer to consider a reasonable accommodation for a qualified employee who, with or without reasonable accommodation, can perform the essential functions of the job. Many scholars and practitioners have shared their experiences in designing reasonable accommodations. The literature, however, does not address the issue of what happens when the disabled employee cannot continue to work. This article addresses what happens when the employee cannot perform the essential functions of their jobs. Do you fire them because they are physically or mentally unable to work? Is there a more humane way of releasing such employees with a modicum of dignity? What is possible? Is there a listing of resources to assist those who cannot work? If so, where is such a listing? Many cases resolve because the parties find a dignified way out of a serious predicament by designing a safety net of financial and medical protections. This article addresses the various ways of managing the many types of private and social insurance, retirement plans, medical options and leave practices that a personnel professional considers when an employee cannot continue to work because of a disabling condition. What About Wage Replacement? Workers Compensation Workers Compensation is a form of social insurance in which all employees who become disabled from a work-related cause are automatically entitled to certain benefits as defined by the State's Workers Compensation Act (which differs form state to state). The benefits include: * Medical treatment; * Temporary compensation (partial wage replacement) until the injured employee reaches a plateau of recovery; * Total permanent disability for workers unable to resume any type of work; * Partial permanent disability for employees who able to work but sustained some lasting detrimental effect from the injury or disease. For example, a herniated disc, even when repaired, may render the motion of an arm only 80 percent functional. Therefore, the worker is entitled to wage replacement for the 20 percent loss; * Death and funeral expenses; * Dependency benefits for certain dependent relatives of a deceased worker. In many states, a worker continues to receive major medical and pension coverage when they are receiving Workers Compensation payments. The real problem, however, is that, from initial filing to actual ruling, the Workers Compensation Court award generally takes from two to four years. …

Sickness and Health: Their Measurement, Distribution, and Changes

T HE extent of illness in a population is not easily measured. Births and deaths are specific and definable events that occur but once to every person, but illness occurs frequently and varies from minor nondisabling symptoms to total permanent disability requiring institutional care until death. With registration systems such as now exist in most of the civilized countries of the world, deaths (fatal illnesses) and births (confinements) are reasonably well recorded; with the possible exception of patients in mental institutions, no other type of illness is as completely recorded. A limited number of communicable

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON COMPENSATION TABLES FOR EYE INJURIES

Your committee has continued its activities during the last year and is pleased to report increasing use of the method advocated by it for determining the visual efficiency of an individual following industrial injury or occupational disease of the eyes. In reply to a letter of inquiry directed to the International Association of Industrial Accident Boards and Commissions of the U. S. A., as to the uniformity of methods for evaluating visual efficiency following ocular injuries or occupational diseases, and as to how many boards and commissions utilized the American Medical Association committee's methods, the secretary replied (in part): Except in states where compensation for specific injuries is written into the statutes, I think all the states compute partial permanent (disability) on a percentage of total permanent (disability), and this would apply to eye injuries as far as I know. Economic blindness is construed as total permanent disability by a

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON COMPENSATION FOR EYE INJURIES

The Committee on Compensation for Eye Injuries was appointed by the Section on Ophthalmology of the American Medical Association in 1919. It has submitted several reports. These have been accepted but not adopted, as more time was deemed necessary for further research. Herewith we submit a final report based on the results of our investigations, both experimental and clinical. SCOPE The aim of the committee is to establish a method of determining the loss of visual efficiency of a person who has suffered any degree of impairment of vision as the result of occupational disease, or injury. Such loss is to be the basis on which the amount of compensation shall be determined. SECTION I. COMPENSATION BASED ON THE VISUAL EFFICIENCY OF THE INDIVIDUAL Compensation for loss of vision should be that proportional part of the compensation provided by law for total permanent disability which expresses the percentage loss of

Actuarial Studies. No. 1: Sources and Characteristics of the Principal Mortality Tables. No. 2: Construction of Mortality Tables from the Records of Insured Lives. No. 4: Graduation of Mortality and Other Tables. No. 5: Total Permanent Disability Benefits in Relation to Life Insurance.

Actuarial Studies. No. 1: Sources and Characteristics of the Principal Mortality Tables. No. 2: Construction of Mortality Tables from the Records of Insured Lives. No. 4: Graduation of Mortality and Other Tables. No. 5: Total Permanent Disability Benefits in Relation to Life Insurance.

Total Permanent Disability Benefits in Relation to Life Insurance

Total Permanent Disability Benefits in Relation to Life Insurance