Workers Comp and the Achilles Tendon Rupture Patient

For those of you who incurred your achilles tendon rupture as a result of an accident, fall, or other mishap while at work, you might find this post interesting. I have never before had to utilize Worker's Compensation (thankfully) and, when this happened to me on 8/26/09 (seems you never forget the date of when such an injury happened!), I immediately panicked about "what the f**k is going to happen now? How long will this take to heal, how long will I be covered, for WHAT will I be covered, how much of a pay cut will I have to take?" etc., etc. It's not a pleasant worry to have (which of course is an oxymoron) but, if you can be patient with the process and trust in your Worker's Comp worker you should be OK. This person is not your employer, by the way, it is the "rep" they send their Worker's Comp cases to which is, in some ways, a benefit because it goes outside the workplace.

After getting some initial BAD information about how the Worker's Comp process works, I got the GOOD information I was needing to help me relax a little bit. Worker's Comp computes your last 52 weeks of NET wages (after taxes, but NOT including any personal deductions you take for medical insurance, your retirement account, etc) and comes up with an average. I'm blanking on the exact percentage you get of this average, but quick math tells me it is somewhere around 80%. At first glance, believe it or not, this does not appear on paper to be a huge difference between what you were bringing home for net pay and what worker's comp will pay you. The reason? Because all your "personal deductions" (see below) are not counted in this. The good news is your weekly check is not a lot less, the bad news is "how do I now pay for these personal deductions that used to be taken care of by payroll deductions?"

Here's an all important detail that no one in my circle could believe was true (but it is): For me, these personal deducations amounted to about $450 per bi-weekly paycheck (OUCH) and this would have been my personal responsibility to pay to my employer every pay period. I don't know about you, but I really don't have an extra $900 a month to shell out for these things. Before I could have a freak attack about it, however, my employer let me know that I could elect to use my sick time to pay for this extra amount. We figured out my rate of pay, how much I needed to come up with each paycheck (about $450) and it amounted to my needing to use about 20 hours of sick time each week. Luckily, I had six weeks of sick time available to me so, right off the bat, I knew I was covered for that amount of time. Should I be out of work longer than this, I would then need to go into my vacation and personal time banks to keep current.

In the employer's favor (which is NOT bad for either side here) is that they do want you back sooner than later and, believe me, after weeks of idle time, you are chomping at the bit to have SOMETHING better to do than hit the remote. So, if I come back on "modified duty" (which, for me, means using my own personal computer and telephone at home to do some office work for four hours a day), my employer certainly benefits and, for me, that is one less sick day (or vacation/personal day) I have to use to remain out of work on less than a full-time basis.

Worker's Comp sent me a letter at the beginning of all this (once my surgery was approved) stating it would be 23 (calendar) days before I could go on modified duty (which, for me, means October 9th) and 103 days before I can go back to full duty (most of this is due to not being able to drive for three months). My assumption is that they have plentiful case studies that show these "out of work" figures to be the average for anyone recuperating from an achilles tendon rupture, so you could probably expect to get the same kind of time off. People have already offered to drive me to work but I think it makes more sense to work from home until I get full clearance. Picking me up/dropping me off when I am on crutches could represent added liability to anyone who does this favor for me as well as for my employer if I just so happen to fall in their parking lot or building. Let's also not forget the stairs I need to navigate on crutches just to get from my front door to the car! However, back to "full duty" for me is somewhere in the vicinity of December 10th.

My purpose in putting all this information out there is that it truly is a jungle to navigate for the novice (which I was until about two-three weeks ago) and I hope someone can benefit from knowing how things went for me. So far, my checks have arrived consistently each Thursday and I know my health insurance, life insurance and retirement contributions are being taken out against my sick time at work by my employer. The less you can have things like this on your mind, the better you are going to be for the long journey of healing. Take it from someone who (already) knows! :-)