Workers’ comp checks stopped? Why they end, and what comes next

The reason comes first

Find out why before deciding what to do.

A stopped check is almost always one of six things, and each one leads somewhere different. Knowing which one you are dealing with is most of the work.

• Your doctor found you permanent and stationary. This is the most common reason. It means your condition has reached a plateau, and it usually moves the claim into permanent disability. It is not necessarily bad news, but it should have been explained to you.
• Your doctor released you to work. The state’s own guidebook for injured workers lists a release to your usual job as an end to temporary disability, whether or not you actually go back. A release to modified work is different, and what happens next depends on whether your employer offers that work.
• You went back to work. A return to your usual job, or to modified or alternative work at your regular wages, ends it.
• You reached the limit. Temporary disability is generally limited to 104 weeks of payments within five years of the date of injuryDate of injury For a cumulative or occupational disease claim, the law sets it as when you first suffered disability and knew or should have known it was work-related — not when the wear began. Almost every deadline runs off this..
• The claim was denied, or a report changed the picture. Sometimes the checks stop because liability was rejected and the letter has not reached you yet. A report from a Qualified Medical EvaluatorQME Qualified Medical Evaluator. A state-certified physician who resolves disputes. Unrepresented workers get a panel of three by random draw. or your treating physician finding you able to work will also stop payments, often before you have seen the report.
• Something administrative went wrong. A new adjuster, a file transfer, a returned check, an address change, a bank problem. It is common, and it is usually fixed with a phone call.

The fastest way to find out is to ask in writing. Email the adjuster one question: under what authority did temporary disability end, and on what date? A written question creates a written answer. Then ask your treating physician what the last report said, and count the weeks you were paid.

My workers’ comp checks stopped Temporary disability

The notice you are owed

A reason, an accounting, and the report it relies on.

California requires the claims administrator to send you a written benefit notice explaining any change in your payments. The state’s regulations spell out what that notice has to contain when temporary disability ends, and it is more than most people expect.

• That the payments are ending, and why. A reason, not a form sentence.
• An accounting of every payment. The temporary disability paid to you, with the dates, the amounts and any penalties.
• The medical report, if the decision rests on one. A copy of it comes with the notice. The one exception is a psychiatric report that the psychiatrist has advised should not be released to you.
• How to dispute it, if you have no lawyer. Where the decision rests on your treating physician’s report, the notice has to explain how to object and ask for a panel of Qualified Medical Evaluators, and the time limit for doing it. If you have a lawyer, the notice tells you to ask your lawyer.

The timing. The notice is due with the last payment. If the decision to stop was made after that payment, it is due within 14 days of it. Where the stop rests on a medical report, the deadline for disputing that report governs instead.

The next benefit belongs in the notice too. If you are not yet permanent and stationary, the administrator has to tell you with the last temporary disability payment that permanent disability may be payable, that the amount cannot be worked out yet, that your condition will be monitored, and roughly when a decision is expected. If permanent disability is already apparent, a notice has to estimate it, explain how the estimate was reached, and say whether you will need future medical care.

Read the accounting with a pen. It is the administrator’s own list of what was paid and when, so it is the quickest way to find a late check, and any late temporary or permanent disability payment is increased by 10% automatically, without your having to ask.

The 10% the law adds to a late check Late payments and penalties

Permanent and stationary does not mean healed

A plateau ends one benefit and starts another.

Permanent and stationary, 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 stays part of the claim unless you settle it away.

A permanent and stationary finding ends the recovery the law pays for. It does not end the injury.

Three things happen at once. Temporary disability ends. Permanent disability begins: the report assigns a 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., the share blamed on other causes, and that becomes your percentage. And several clocks start, including the one that decides the job displacement voucher.

Read the report. It determines much of what the claim is worth. Five things to check:

• Every injured body part is addressed. A body part that appears in your treatment records but not in the 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 method identified. An arm or leg percentage is not a whole person percentage.
• 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. v. Marshalls, an en banc decision of the Appeals Board in 2005, a doctor who blames part of a disability on something other than the work injury has to explain how and why. 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, and for how long.

If you disagree. Whether you are permanent and stationary is a medical question, and it is settled through the medical-legal process rather than by argument with the adjuster. If the finding came from your treating physician, the time to object is short: 20 days from receiving the report if you have a lawyer, 30 days if you do not. The objection is what opens the way to a panel of evaluators, and a late or defective one can undo the panel that follows. What there generally is not is a way to fix the record after the mandatory settlement conferenceMSC Mandatory Settlement Conference. Where most cases end — and where discovery closes., because discovery closes there.

My doctor said I’m permanent and stationary The QME process

Released to work, with or without a job

What the doctor says, and what the employer offers.

A release is a medical opinion about what you can do. Whether there is work to go back to is a separate question.

A release to your usual job. The state’s guidebook lists it as an end to temporary disability whether or not you actually return. If you believe you cannot do the job, that is the same medical dispute as a permanent and stationary finding, on the same short deadline.

A release to modified work. If modified work is available and you can do it, temporary disability generally stops, or converts to a partial payment. Temporary partial disability pays two-thirds of the difference between what you earned before the injury and what you earn now, up to the same weekly maximum, and its weeks count against the same 104-week limit. That rule turns on two facts: the work was actually offered, and it fits your restrictions. If either is wrong in your case, say so in writing, and keep the doctor’s restrictions beside the offer.

After permanent and stationary, the offer that decides the voucher. Your employer may offer regular, modified or alternative work. A qualifying offer has to come within 60 days after the claims administrator receives the first report finding you permanent and stationary with permanent partial disability, for work lasting at least 12 months, within the restrictions the doctor described. A qualifying offer means no $6,000 supplemental job displacement voucher, and with it no $5,000 Return-to-Work Supplement, because the voucher is the only way to the supplement. An offer you physically cannot do is not a qualifying offer. If the 60 days pass with no qualifying offer, the voucher has to be offered within 20 days. If you lost no time from work, or went back to the position you held when you were hurt, you are treated as having been offered and having accepted regular work.

The job itself is a different body of law. A workers’ compensation claim does not, by itself, guarantee you a job. That protection is in California’s disability and family leave laws, with their own deadlines.

The $6,000 voucher and the $5,000 supplement Return to work and job protection

The 104 weeks, counted from the injury

A five-year window, not two years of checks.

For injuries on or after January 1, 2008, temporary disability is limited to 104 compensable weeks within five years of the date of injury. Read the second half twice. It is not 104 weeks from when the payments started. It is 104 weeks inside a window that opens on the day you were hurt and closes five years later, whether or not checks were coming in the meantime.

That is a real trap. A worker whose claim is denied and fought over for four years has, in practical terms, about one year left. The clock ran while the case was being fought.

The longer limit, for a closed list. Nine conditions get 240 weeks within the five years: acute and chronic hepatitis B, acute and chronic hepatitis C, HIV, amputations, severe burns, high-velocity eye injuries, chemical burns to the eyes, pulmonary fibrosis and chronic lung disease. A separate rule gives up to 240 weeks for a cancer covered by the presumption for firefighters and peace officers, for injuries on or after January 1, 2023, with no five-year window at all. The 104-week stop is often an automated count, so if one of these applies to you, check the count yourself.

What does not extend it, said plainly. The list is closed. There is no catch-all for a catastrophic injuryCatastrophic injury Under § 4660.1(c)(2)(B), “including, but not limited to, loss of a limb, paralysis, severe burn, or severe head injury.” Lifts the bar on psychiatric ratings.: a worker with a devastating spinal cord injury gets 104 weeks, while a worker with an amputation gets 240. And the weeks you spent waiting for treatment that was wrongly denied, then approved on Independent Medical ReviewIMR Independent Medical Review. The appeal from a UR denial. 30 days (10 if the dispute is only over drugs on the MTUS Drug List)., still count against the 104. Two bills that would have changed that both failed, and when this site last reviewed the rule, in August 2026, there was no exception for that delay. Those are poor odds, and it is better to know them now than in the 103rd week.

Count the weeks yourself. Add up every week of temporary disability paid, total and partial, from the notice’s accounting, and write down the date five years after your injury. Those two numbers tell you whether the limit is the reason.

A raise some long claims are owed. If temporary total disability is still being paid two years or more after the injury, each of those payments is computed at the rate limits in effect when it is paid, not those of the year you were hurt. In 2026 the limits are $264.61 to $1,764.11 a week. The raise is self-executing and routinely missed; the 2026 rates article works the arithmetic.

The 2026 temporary disability rates, and which year’s rate you get How much do I get paid while off work?

The next check is a different benefit

Permanent disability, on a much lower schedule.

When temporary disability ends because you are permanent and stationary with a lasting impairment, permanent disability takes its place. It is a different benefit, paid on a different and much lower schedule.

When it starts. The first permanent disability payment is due within 14 days after the last temporary disability payment, with exceptions where the employer offers work at 85 to 100% of what you earned before. Once there is a basis for a rating, permanent disability is generally payable in advance of a final award rather than held back until everything is resolved. If nothing arrives, ask.

How much. For an injury in 2014 or later, permanent disability is paid at $160 to $290 a week. That range has not changed since January 1, 2014. Unlike temporary disability, permanent disability does not rise with wages, so a worker hurt in 2026 is paid at rates set twelve years earlier.

What the drop looks like. Take an illustrative worker whose temporary disability check was $800 a week. The permanent disability check that follows will be no more than $290 a week. A worker at the 2026 temporary disability maximum of $1,764.11 a week drops to the same $290.

How long it lasts. The rating converts into weeks, from 3 weeks a point at the bottom of the scale to 16 at the top: a 15% rating is 50.50 weeks, $14,645 at $290 a week. At 70% or more, a life pensionLife pension Payable at 70%–99% after the PD award is exhausted. § 4659(a): 1.5% of average weekly earnings per point above 60 — with earnings capped at $515.38 since 2006. follows.

Permanent disability A settlement offer, read line by line

When the stop is wrong

A written question, a medical dispute, and a judge.

A stop can be lawful and still be handled badly, and some stops are simply wrong. The remedy depends on which.

No reason, or the wrong one. Put the question in writing: under what authority did temporary disability end, and on what date? If no notice came, say that in the same message.

A medical finding you disagree with. Object within the deadline, 20 days with a lawyer and 30 without, counted from the day you received the report. The dispute then goes to a Qualified Medical Evaluator, or an Agreed Medical Evaluator if both sides choose one. In a contested case, that evaluator’s report is usually the evidence a judge relies on.

A benefit wrongly stopped, when you cannot wait. For urgent disputes over medical treatment or temporary disability, an expedited hearing is available, and it is heard in person, not on paper. A wrongly stopped benefit does not have to wait its turn on the ordinary calendar.

A check that came late. On top of the automatic 10%, where a delay was unreasonable a judge can increase the delayed amount by up to 25% or $10,000, whichever is less, pursued within two years of the date the payment was due.

A permanent and stationary finding ends the recovery the law pays for. It does not end the injury.

Late payments and penalties The QME process

The gap, and how to bridge it

Income now, without giving up the claim.

The weeks after the last temporary disability check are where people make the most expensive decisions in this system.

• State Disability Insurance. If the gap is going to last, apply to EDD for State Disability Insurance. EDD decides whether you qualify. If you later recover workers’ compensation for the same period, EDD is repaid out of that recovery, so it is a bridge, not extra money.
• Your own leave. Sick and vacation leave is money you have already earned, and once it is spent it is gone. Whether to use it now is a real choice, and the gap after temporary disability ends is one of the times you may want it.
• The voucher’s $500. If a voucher has been issued, $500 of it is a miscellaneous allowance, payable on request, without receipts, and it can be taken as an advance. Most workers never ask for it.

I can’t afford to wait Do I have to use my sick time?

When you do not need a lawyer for this

Some stops are paperwork.

Not every stopped check calls for a lawyer.

• A paperwork stop. A new adjuster, a returned check or an address change is usually fixed by a call and an email confirming it.
• A permanent and stationary finding you agree with. If the report covers every injured body part, the restrictions are specific and the apportionment is explained, the next step is the rating. Every district office of the Division of Workers’ Compensation has a free Information & Assistance officer who helps unrepresented workers with exactly these forms and notices.
• A late check’s 10%. You do not need a lawyer to be paid it. You need the ledger that shows which checks were late.

A review is worth having for a report you doubt, a release to a job you cannot do, a denial, a rating or a settlement offer. A consultation with this office costs nothing, and if there is nothing worth doing, we will tell you that.

When you don’t need a lawyer

The clocks that start when the checks stop

Six deadlines, and where each one runs from.

The deadlines in this article run from three different days: the last check, the day you received a medical report, and the day the claims administrator received the first permanent and stationary report.

Four of these belong to the claims administrator, and two are yours. The notice, the first permanent disability payment, the offer and the voucher are obligations the administrator has to meet, and the dates tell you whether it did. The objection and the supplement are deadlines you have to meet, and missing either one is hard to undo.

A file to keep when the checks stop

One folder, started the week the checks stop.

• The last benefit notice — And its envelope, with the date it arrived. If no notice came, a dated note saying so.
• The accounting of payments — Every check: the date issued, the date received, the period covered and the amount.
• The report the stop relies on — The date you received it, and the objection deadline counted from that day.
• Your week count — Every week of temporary disability paid, total and partial, against the 104, and the date five years after your injury.
• Any offer of work — The date, the duties, the wage and how long it lasts, beside the doctor’s written restrictions.
• The voucher, if one came — Its proof of service date, and that date one year on.
• Your written question to the adjuster — Under what authority temporary disability ended, and on what date, with any answer.
• Your SDI application, if you made one — The date you applied and every notice from EDD.