In 2018, significant reforms to New York workers’ compensation law—the most important and impactful changes in a decade—are predicted to generate considerable cost savings within the workers’ compensation system, thus enabling a rate reduction for both public and private employers. At the same time, lawmakers pledge these reforms will enhance protections in place for injured workers.
Firstly, the reform legislation amended Workers’ Compensation Law (WCL) § 15(3)(w) pertaining to Permanent Partial Disability (PPD), providing a credit to employers and insurance carriers for periods of temporary disability that extend beyond 2 ½ years from the date of injury. The statutory changes also create a “safety valve” that extends the period of temporary disability beyond 2 ½ years when the Workers’ Compensation Board determines that the claimant has not yet reached maximum medical improvement (MMI) by that date, and once the Board makes a determination of PPD, a claimant who is entitled to benefits at the time of classification is no longer required to demonstrate ongoing labor market attachment.
The threshold for determining when a PPD claimant may apply to the WC Board for a redetermination due to extreme hardship has also been lowered. Formerly, claimants were required to show a loss of wage earning capacity (LWEC) of greater than 80%; now, the threshold is 75%.
With the stated goal of reflecting and incorporating “advances in medicine that result in better healing and outcomes for injured workers,” the reform legislation required the WC Board to totally revamp its Permanency Impairment Guidelines by September 1, 2017, to be adopted by January 1, 2018.
It would seem that updating the guidelines was—if anything—long past due. Most were based on evaluation methodologies created in the early 1900s. Under the new guidelines, “the finding of permanency is to be made by the Board, based on the evidence of the permanent medical impairment’s measured impact on the earning power of the disabled claimant.” So, there is more emphasis on the claimant’s ability to return to work and make a living, rather than simply the type of injury the claimant has sustained.
However, when the first draft of the revised Permanency Impairment Guidelines was released in September, labor unions argued the new guidelines would ultimately reduce benefits for injured workers in New York by increasing uncertainty, delay, and litigation in the workers’ compensation process—thus undermining the legislative intent to provide “better protections for injured workers.”
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