By the Tindall Gask Bentley Workplace Law
Team
Effective 1 April 2009, significant changes to the way a
worker's entitlements to lump sum compensation for permanent
disability are assessed, took effect.
Previously a worker's injured body part was assessed in
accordance with the Third Schedule of the Workers Rehabilitation
and Compensation Act with a formula then being used to calculate an
entitlement to compensation. That assessment was made by either an
independent doctor or a treating doctor.
Since the changes, assessments of permanent disability are now
only able to be made by Accredited Assessors who have been trained
under the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment,
Fifth Edition. Furthermore, the assessments that they make are now
of "whole person impairment" (WPI). A threshold has been
introduced meaning that a worker now needs to be assessed as having
a 5% or greater WPI in order to qualify for compensation. Whilst
the maximum compensation
