Florida Injury Attorney Blawg
Florida’s workers’ compensation system, outlined in Chapter 440 of Florida’s statutes, allows four different types of wage loss benefits divided into two categories. The categories are temporary and permanent indemnity benefits.
There are two types of temporary indemnity benefits, Temporary Total Disability (TTD) and Temporary Partial Disability (TPD). Section 440.15(2)(a) describes TTD as being a “disability total in quality but temporary in quality….,” while TPD, described in section 440.15(4)(a), is the monetary benefit paid when the person’s disability is less than total, meaning the injured employee is capable of performing some type of physical work activity.
TTD is paid at 2/3 of the injured employee’s average weekly wage (AWW), while TPD is “80 percent of the difference between 80 percent of the employee’s average weekly wage and the salary, wages, and other remuneration the employee is able to earn postinjury….” For example, if AWW is $1,000, the TTD and TPD payments are $666.70 and $640.00, respectively. The good news is that workers’ compensation indemnity benefits are not taxable.
Temporary indemnity benefits end once the injured employee is placed at maximum medical improvement (MMI), defined in 440.02(2): (10) as follows: “‘Date of maximum medical improvement’ means the date after which further recovery from, or lasting improvement to, an injury or disease can no longer reasonably be anticipated, based upon reasonable medical probability.” (Temporary benefits also end as a matter of law after 260 weeks of payments. Typically, MMI is reached well before 260 weeks, or 5 years, of temporary payments are made.)
Fights often ensue over disability status, partial and total, and MMI. Because the insurance carriers get to select the treating doctors, those handpicked doctors typically offer opinions that are helpful to the carriers. While there are ways to fight back, the options are limited by the system’s decided slant in favor of employers and carriers on these legal points.