Understanding Your Schedule

A Schedule Loss of Use award (known as an SLU) is an additional cash payment. It pays you for an injury that leaves you with less ability in a body part than you had before the injury. If you don’t get back the same level of use in the injured body part, because you now have a permanent disability, you may be eligible for an SLU payment. You can receive this money even if you never missed time from work or if you’ve already returned to work.

You may deserve an award if one or more of these body parts¹ doesn’t fully heal to where it was before the injury.

• Arm
• Leg
• Hand
• Foot
• Face (Scar)/Neck/Scalp
• Toe
• Eye (Vision Loss)
• Ear (Hearing Loss)
• Finger

Body parts may also include the wrist, elbow, shoulder, ankle, knee, and hip. Permanent injury to a body part may include: fractures, amputations, surgeries, tears, dislocations, second and third degree burns, crush injuries and severe nerve damage.

The law states how many benefit weeks you'll receive. It's based on the body part and how much it was damaged. You'll get a certain number of weeks of payment to make up for the permanent injury. For example:

1. The law allows 312 weeks for an arm injury.
2. You lost 25% weeks of the use of your arm.
3. 25% of 312 weeks = 78 weeks.
4. You earn $900 weekly. Two-thirds your average weekly wage (your workers' compensation rate) is $600.
5. $600 a week for 78 weeks = $46,800 to you.

A doctor’s opinion is needed. Ask your doctor when you’ve reached maximum medical improvement. If your injury is permanent, your doctor will state how much less you can use that body part. It’ll be a percentage: 25%, 50%, and so on. The doctor will file that opinion with the Board.

Make sure your doctor sends a report to the Board. The Board reviews all medical reports. If your doctor and the insurer's doctor agree on the amount of loss you suffered, that becomes the number of weeks of payment you will get. If the Board gets only one medical opinion, it will write to you and the insurer, asking for the other. You have 60 days to get a report. The insurer has 90 days to get a report. If we don’t get the other medical report from you in 60 days, or from the insurer in 90 days, the Board will decide based on the one medical report in your file. Be sure your doctor sends a report to the Board.

If your doctor and the insurer's doctor disagree, the Board will decide. You may be asked for more documents, and you may have a hearing. (You'll receive a notice with the date, time and place of the hearing.) There, the judge will try to resolve the dispute or schedule a trial. In either case the judge will render a decision. The insurer has 10 days to pay the award after the final decision.

If your award is worth more than the payments you already received for that injury, an SLU award is paid one of two ways.

1. You’ll get your regular workers' compensation checks until the SLU award is fully paid, or
2. You can write to the Board and ask for the rest of the SLU payment in a lump sum. The Board will direct the insurer to pay you the rest of the money in one check.

The Advocate for Injured Workers helps injured workers get the benefits they deserve under the law. This office will help you with your case and can explain a schedule loss of use claim. 

(518) 457-5279