As you go through a workers' compensation case when you're injured on the job you're almost always going to find yourself at one point or another on restrictions from your doctor. Where they are restricting your physical activity, what you can do, and can't do at your job. When that happens, you need to make sure you're notifying your employer immediately of what those restrictions are and if they are changing. Typically what's going to happen is the employer is either going to provide light duty, which is work that fits within those restrictions and then allow you to continue working in some capacity.
There are pitfalls that come up in that where sometimes the employer will reduce your rate of pay or they will reduce the amount of hours that you are getting. When that happens, you may be bringing home less money and you may be entitled to a benefit called temporary partial disability where the insurance company pays sort of the difference.
The other aspect is if the employer comes out and says "Well we don't have any work that fits within these restrictions." Then, you may be entitled to a benefit called temporary total disability where you are at home, recovering, and not actually going to work.
There are also times where your employer, for whatever reason, may decide that they want to give you work that is outside of those restrictions. Immediately you need to notify the employer. These are perfect times when you need to get an attorney involved because those are the types of things your attorney can help to fix so that you're either getting the benefits that you deserve or the light-duty is being provided the way it's supposed to be provided.
So if you're on light duty, and you're working within those light-duty restrictions, and you are terminated from your employment. There may be a chance you would still be entitled to benefits known as temporary total disability, even though you had been terminated. That's another reason to consult with an attorney to find out whether you are still eligible for those benefits even though you've been terminated from your employment.
When you go to the doctor and you're being treated on an authorized basis, in other words, when the employer or the insurance company is setting up that treatment, you're going to be provided a form when you leave the doctor that will have whatever restrictions the doctor is placing on you on that form. That form needs to be presented to your employer so that they know what the restrictions are.
If you are represented by an attorney what you would do is you would bring that into my office, we would then present that to the defense attorney or the insurance company to make sure everyone is aware of what the restrictions are, and so that we are all playing by the same rules.
Typically there's not too much of a lag. What's going to happen is when you come into my office you're going to bring me a copy of the restrictions, you're going to let me have them, I'm going to make a copy, I'm going to give you back the original that you have. You can take that to your employer. I will then submit it to the insurance company and/or the insurance company's lawyer so that everyone has restrictions at about the same time.

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