Permanent vs. Temporary Disability Benefits: What’s the Difference?

When an employee is injured at work, they are entitled to workers compensation benefits. Depending on the severity of their injuries, injured workers might also be eligible for either permanent or temporary disability benefits too. In this blog, we explain the differences between these two types of disability benefits.

Permanent Disability Benefits

A permanent disability is any long lasting disability or illness that affects a person’s ability to perform their job duties and keeps them from earn a living. Employees who have suffered a work-related injury that causes them to become permanently disabled are entitled to disability benefits, even when they are able to return to their job.

However, it is important to point out that permanent disability benefits can be limited. Sometimes, Permanent disability benefits are not enough to cover all of an injured workers lost income. Permanent disability benefits also doesn’t cover monetary losses that are unrelated to your ability to work. In addition to these limitations, permanent disability ratings no longer account for the injured employee’s future earning capacity.

Temporary Disability Benefits

If a worker’s injury prevents them from doing their usual job duties while they are recovering, they might be eligible for temporary disability benefits. These benefits are payments the employee receives if they lose wages because:

There are two types of temporary disability benefits:

Do you have more questions about permanent and temporary disability benefits? Contact our Bakersfield workers’ compensation lawyers to find out how we can help you today. Ph: 1-800-848-6288.

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