“My doctor said I’m permanent and stationary.”

What P&S actually means

Permanent and stationaryP&S / MMI Permanent and Stationary / Maximum Medical Improvement. Your condition has plateaued — not that you are healed. Temporary disability ends here. — the same thing as maximum medical improvement — means your condition has reached a plateau and is not expected to materially improve or worsen in the next year with further treatment.

It does not mean you are healed. It does not mean treatment stops. Future medical care for the injury remains part of the claim unless you settle it away.

Three things happen at once

Temporary disability ends. TD replaces wages while you are recovering. Recovery is now over, as the system defines it.

Permanent disability begins. The report assigns whole person impairmentWPI — Whole Person Impairment The percentage from the AMA Guides that a rating is built from. Extremity percent is not whole person percent: 100% upper extremity = 60% whole person, 100% lower extremity = 40%. This is the most common source of confusion in a rating. under the AMA Guides and states apportionmentApportionment Dividing permanent disability between industrial and non-industrial causes. It is to disability, not to findings on an image.. That runs through the rating schedule to produce your percentage. How.

The clock on several deadlines becomes real — including whether you get a job displacement voucher, and whether the settlement discussion is about to start.

Read the report. Actually read it.

Six things to check:

Every injured body part is addressed. A body part that appears in your treatment records but not in the P&S report contributes nothing.

Work restrictions are stated specifically. “Light duty” is not a restriction. Pounds, hours, positions, and frequencies are.

Impairment is stated as whole person impairment, with the chapter, table, and method identified. Extremity percentages are not whole person percentages — 100% upper extremity is 60% whole person; 100% lower extremity is 40%.

Apportionment is explained, not just stated. Under EscobedoEscobedo The en banc decision requiring an apportionment opinion to explain how and why. A percentage without reasoning is not substantial evidence., an apportionment opinion must explain how and why a non-industrial factor caused a specific percentage of the disability. A percentage with no reasoning is not substantial evidenceSubstantial evidence The standard a medical opinion must meet to support a finding..

Future medical care is described — what you will need, for how long. This is the paragraph that determines whether a Compromise and ReleaseC&R — Compromise and Release A lump sum that closes future medical treatment permanently. makes sense.

And the strict rating is not obviously wrong for your injury. Some injuries rate poorly by design. Shoulders · knees · carpal tunnel · hearing loss.

If the report is wrong

There are procedures for objecting, for supplemental reports, for a deposition of the evaluator, and for cross-examination, and they have deadlines. What there is not, generally, is a way to fix it after the mandatory settlement conferenceMSC Mandatory Settlement Conference. Where most cases end — and where discovery closes. — because, discovery closes there and undisclosed evidence is inadmissible.

This is the moment in the claim where a review is worth the most and costs the least. After the MSC, the record is largely fixed.