Medical Restrictions & Forms - Episode 47 Federal Workers Compensation Coffee Break Podcast

Federal Workers Compensation Coffee Break Podcast is an educational and informative training on how to navigate the DOL -OWCP claims filing process for all types of injured US government and federal workers. The podcast is free and is educational. If you need help with anything related to a federal workers compensation claim...help is just a cup of coffee away.

If you are injured, you probably are currently on a medical restriction related to your accepted federal workers compensation claim. As such, this means that your doctor has instructed your employee agency that you are not able to perform certain job duties or actions during your normal workday due to medical restrictions. But one of the big misunderstandings that injured workers have is the following question, “What am I allowed to do with my self-care activities? What that doctor has not ordered or give instructions on, by completing a return-to-work status form such as a CA-17 & CA-5C is that you must stop performing specific actions which you need to execute in order to live your normal daily life.

The CA-17 is a form which the OWCP directs both the injured worker’s supervisor and his/her treating physician to complete. The CA-17 is a legal OWCP document for reporting work status to OWCP not to the employee agency

The OWCP Form 5c Work Capacity Evaluation Musculoskeletal Conditions is also a work status for that can be completed by the injured worker’s treating physician, but it DOES NOT contain any information regarding the employee’s:

• clinical diagnosis
• other disabling conditions
• the treating physician’s clinical findings

More information is found in the show's transcript!

Dr. Taylor’s contact information is: https://fedcompconsultants@protonmail.com 

If you need an OWCP approved medical provider, You can make a  a consultation with me to discuss your case or if you know someone in Tampa or Pensacola Florida and south Mississippi, Georgia or Alabama,  who is recently injured you can call the clinic at 813-215-4356 or go  to our website athttps://fedcompconsultants.com/    & https://mrtherapycenter.com/  Also if you are in  another state and you want me to assist  you with claim questions or assistance for your  doctor you can email me at fedcompconsultants@protonmail.com or send me a message on the website at fedcompconsultants.com
Also you can find Fed Comp Coffee Break Podcast on Youtube Be sure and subscribe, like, and/or

Transcript

                                         Medical Restrictions Misconceptions: 
                         The CA-17 Duty Status Report vs. OWCP Form 5c

 I get more questions on return-to-work forms and problems with employee agencies more than any other topic with Federal Workers Compensation injured claimants. If you are injured, you probably are currently on a medical restriction related to your accepted federal workers compensation claim. As such, this means that your doctor has instructed your employee agency that you are not able to perform certain job duties or actions during your normal workday due to medical restrictions. But one of the big misunderstandings that injured workers have is the following question, “What am I allowed to do with my self-care activities? What that doctor has not ordered or give instructions on, by completing a return-to-work status form such as a CA-17 & CA-5C is that you must stop performing specific actions which you need to execute in order to live your normal daily life.

Self Care activities and actions of daily living  like doing laundry, washing dishes, carrying groceries, taking out the trash, mowing the lawn, playing with your child, recreational activities, etc., are all normal off-the-job actions which OWCP injured clients have been told by their supervisors or employee  agencies not to do. But, this is not a mandate that treating doctors are asked to address according to federal law.  Injured workers have been told that they would be violating their medical restrictions and have their OWCP benefits terminated. However, these actions are, in fact, OK for the worker to do off the job. Most injured workers, employee agency representatives and treating doctors do not understand the rules, provisions and rights and responsibilities that come with private eye investigations of workers that are off of work or on temporary total disability. This system is abused and misused constantly, and most people do not know how to react or handle video surveillance and neither do their doctors.

How do these agencies discover that the worker is taking out the trash at home and that said action is supposedly against his/her doctor’s stated medical restrictions? They do so  by clandestinely following and videotaping the injured worker. What I want to address in this podcast  is why all of those “daily living” actions are OK and you cannot be punished for self-care activities. Do not submit your CA-17 Duty Status Report to your federal employing agency. Send it directly to your OWCP Claims Examiner in ECOMP! The Employees’ Compensation Appeals Board also known as ECAB,  issued a decision on Sept. 26 (Docket 11-863) which ruled that employee agencies are not allowed to use video evidence of self-care activities or activities of daily living to terminate OWCP off work benefits. This has been upheld several times in ECAB decisions. It is an intimidation tactic that has no merit in federal rules and provisions in the FECA Act. 

                                                       CA-17 Duty Status Report

Let’s discuss the OWCP form  CA-17 Duty Status Report, what types of information are contained on it, and who completes the form. The CA-17 is a form which the OWCP directs both the injured worker’s supervisor and his/her treating physician to complete. It is split into two sections. There are two sides to the CA-17: Side A is completed by the employee’s supervisor and Side B is completed by the employee’s physician. A properly completed CA-17 should give the doctor an accurate picture of a worker’s daily work duties so that accurate work restrictions can be noted. Unfortunately, most supervisors have little training or experience in completing Side A, which can lead to problems for doctors, claimants and claims examiners. Injured workers should thoroughly review Side A of the CA-17 prior to taking it to their doctor. Because the CA-17 is a legal OWCP document, any visible alterations of a completed form may be viewed as tampering and can lead to accusations of fraud. If the supervisor’s section of the CA-17 is not filled out correctly, a new form should be requested. If the supervisor refuses to provide a new CA17, a grievance should be filed. Side A (the left side) of the CA-17 form is completed by the employee’s supervisor. Items 1 through 4 on Side A are relatively self-explanatory, requiring the supervisor to list the employee’s name, date of injury, Social Security number and occupation. Item 5 requires the supervisor to accurately describe how the injury occurred and the body parts affected. Injured workers should verify that this information is correct. Item 6 asks for the employee’s work hours per day and days per week. This should reflect the normal work hours and days of the individual employee. This is important; most workers work a regular five-day, 40-hour workweek. A doctor might assume that the injured worker has weekends off, and therefore has two days to recover from the rigors of a regular 40-hour week. The CA-17 should accurately reflect the number of workdays consistently scheduled  during typical work  week. Item 7 requires special consideration by the supervisor as it describes the usual work requirements of the particular employee. Item 7a. describes how much weight a carrier handles continuously and intermittently. This is often improperly filled out. 

For example if you are a postal worker…Postal regulations require that letter carriers can carry 35 pounds intermittently and 70 pounds continuously. The only time a CA-17 would list less weight is if the injured worker is working a limited-duty assignment that specifies a lower weight. If a supervisor writes less than 35 and 70 pounds for a worker not on a light-duty assignment, a new CA-17 should be requested. The rest of the activities listed in Item 7 should reflect the route of the specific employee. While some activities like sitting, standing and walking are straightforward, the activity of climbing may be confusing to some supervisors. Climbing should include the amount of time spent climbing up stairs and in and out of a vehicle. Sorting and delivering mail requires constant use of your hands, so activities such as grasping and fine manipulation are done throughout the day and should be listed as eight hours per day. So that is one example of how this OWCP form is applied for injured workers such as postal workers but you can apply these same principle to any division of government employment. 

On this side A (left side)  of the form, the form also provides sections for the supervisor to briefly describe how the injury occurred, the body parts affected, and to describe any other actions the employee’s job requires which are not specified elsewhere on the form.

Side B (the right side) is completed by the employee’s treating physician. On Side B, the physician must:

• specify his/her clinical findings
• state whether the employee’s medical history of the injury corresponds to the information entered in Section A of the form
• provide clinical findings
• provide a diagnosis due to the injury
• state whether the employee has been advised by the doctor to return to work, and, if so,
• can the employee return to his/her regular job duties

If the physician answers “No” to the employee returning to regular job duties, he/she must then proceed to enter the same information regarding specific job activities, as the supervisor did. However, the physician must enter the information specifying if the employee is allowed to perform those activities and, if so, for how long and state how much the activities may be performed on a continuous and/or intermittent basis. Your treating doctor also must specify how much weight the employee may lift / carry.

Now what is important to remember is the following with regard to this return to work status CA-17 form. Notice that this form ONLY specifies on-the-job duties and restrictions. It does not mention the employee’s activities restrictions outside the job. Notice also that the directions on the form state that the supervisor is to complete Section A and then forward the CA-17 to the employee’s treating physician for the doctor to complete Section B. If the supervisor follows these directions properly, the supervisor does not see the employee’s diagnosis, other disabling conditions, or the physician’s clinical findings as these items are to be completed by the physician after the supervisor completes his Section A and sends the form to the doctor. These facts are important to our discussion, as we will show later. Do not submit your CA-17 Duty Status Report to your federal employing agency. Send it directly to your OWCP Claims Examiner in ECOMP!

OWCP Form 5c Work Capacity Evaluation Musculoskeletal Conditions

The OWCP Form 5c is also a work status for that can be completed by the injured worker’s treating physician, but it DOES NOT contain any information regarding the employee’s:

• clinical diagnosis
• other disabling conditions
• the treating physician’s clinical findings

Like the CA-17, the OWCP Form 5c DOES contain the following information:

• answers to the question of whether or not the employee should return to work, and, if so, can he/she return to his/her regular job duties
• if unable to return to regular job duties, then:
• which activities is the employee allowed to perform
• for how long (for example, walking for 1 hour out of any work day)
• number of pounds able to be lifted and/or carried

Like the CA-17, the OWCP Form 5c only addresses on-the-job activities. It DOES NOT mention any activities related to the employee’s daily living outside of work (such as mowing the lawn, carrying groceries, taking out trash, etc.) The employee’s supervisor does not enter any information on, and has no input into, the OWCP Form 5c whatsoever. The OWCP Form 5c is for the benefit of the employing agency and the employee’s manager(s), supervisor(s), and anyone else who may need to know which on-the-job activities are limited by the employee’s injury, per the treating physician’s assessment. That is it … no self-care activities are mentioned or addressed in this form either. 

Why I  Spend So Much Time Describing the OWCP Form CA-17 and OWCP Form 5c?

The reason we spent so much time describing the OWCP Form CA-17 and the OWCP Form 5c is to illustrate that OWCP Form CA-17 is for OWCP records and OWCP Form 5c is for use by the employee’s supervisors, investigators, agencies, etc. All too often I have seen patients tell us that they were called into their supervisor’s office only to see that their CA-17 was sitting on top of the supervisor’s desk for all who enter to see. I  also have seen patients who have been approached by investigators who proceeded to tell the employee that, because of their injury, the employee is not allowed to do activities of daily living such as driving, laundry  or bring the groceries in from the car, or take out the trash, or mow the lawn, etc., and that the injured employee would have his/her OWCP benefits terminated due to fraud if they continued to engage in those self-care activities. 

Understand that no supervisor, manager, investigator, or employing agency should have access to or possess the injured federal worker’s CA-17 without the express written consent of the injured employee. Doing so without consent is a violation of HIPAA, the Privacy Act, and the injured employee’s civil rights all supported by federal law and federal rules & provisions in the FECA act. If the injured employee is approached by anyone who has or had access to his/her CA-17 without the employee’s consent, the employee should immediately file a grievance, file an EEO, and pursue any and all other civil and criminal charges available to him/her under the laws covering such violations. If those same individuals and/or entities need access to the injured worker’s medical restrictions, they are entitled to get them from the OWCP Form 5c. If the employee agency wants to know what your restrictions are to work on your light duty, they have the right to ask that a CA-5C form. 

                       What Do the Medical Restrictions on the CA-17 Mean?

Medical restrictions listed on both the CA-17 Duty Status Report and OWCP Form 5c are expressly for on-the-job actions or requirements. They do not cover what the employee does when not working. For example, when the medical provider gives an injured employee a ten-pound weight restriction, this restriction limits the employee to not being able to lift ten pounds repeatedly for eight hours a day, five days a week. This restriction does not bar the injured worker from taking out their garbage once a week or going to the grocery store and bending down to lift a eight -pound gallon of milk or juice. The medical restriction only applies to what the employee can perform at the workplace for eight hours a day repetitively for five days a week according to federal law.

Now, listen up because most people do not know their own rights and provisions. If YOU the injured employee can no longer perform his/her normal everyday life functions, you NOW will qualify for Additional Compensation for Services of an Attendant, which comes under 5 U.S.C § 8111. This allows the Secretary of Labor to pay up to $1500.00 per month to help injured employees with their everyday living functions, such as (but not limited to) going to the grocery store, cleaning the house, cutting the lawn, and picking up the newspaper if they cannot bend over. 

Some Examples from Relevant Federal Workers’ Compensation Cases

There is a famous Federal Workers’ Compensation case where an egregious violation by the employee agency was ruled against in an ECAB decision, Docket Number 11-863. In this particular OWCP case and subsequent ECAB ruling the injured worker’s OWCP rights were terminated due to fraud and the ECAB found that the OIG and postal inspectors, all managers for the U.S. Postal Service, in this particular case had violated the claimant’s rights by visiting the claimant’s doctors several times. They showed the doctors edited videos of the employee allegedly violating his medical restrictions. The inspectors provided no explanation as to how videos were edited, or who performed the editing. The videos were not shown to the medical providers in their entirety but in a post-edited version. The medical providers were informed by the inspectors that this was a secret fraud investigation and that the medical providers were not allowed to inform the claimant of the inspectors’ visit. The claimant was not informed of the existence of the videos, was never shown the videos, and was not given the opportunity to comment on the videos prior to them being shown to his numerous medical providers. All of these actions were found by ECAB to violate federal OWCP rules and regulations. The ECAB decision in this case reinstated the employee’s OWCP benefits, reprimanded the agents for both having direct contact with the claimant’s medical providers and for keeping the doctor visits secret, and also for neither giving the claimant a copy of the video nor allowing him to make comments prior to showing the video to anyone. The agents were also told by ECAB that they edited the videos without any explanation as to why they were edited, who had edited the videos, or what exactly was cut from them. Finally, the claimant’s rights were reinstated fully and no fraud charges were ever filed. This case and similar cases that came afterward have all upheld this ruling every single time. 

Also you can see some video content on youtube by me on topics under the Federal Workers Compensation Coffee Break podcast search bar on youtube. 

Well that does it for this episode of Federal Workers Comp Coffee break Podcast. I want to thank you for listening and want to remind you to share this podcast with other federal workers you think would benefit from this information. Also, if you need an approved medical provider for your DOL -OWCP Or Longshore case in Florida you can find me in Tampa and soon in Pensacola Florida. If you are in Alabama, Georgia, north Florida or Mississippi you now can come see me in Pensacola. Look for that clinic announcement soon. I am in negotiation for opening in Oklahoma soon and that will be the last clinic that I will be in. To make a consult with me to discuss your case or if you know someone in Florida who is recently injured you can call the clinic at 813-877-6900. 

 Also, if you are in another state and you want me to assist you with claim questions or assistance for your doctor you can email me at fedcompconsultants@protonmail.com

I need to warm up this coffee and get going. As usual I want to thank all of you who put on that uniform, that badge, deliver that mail, take care of our veterans and make this government run… a big thank you. I do this for free just for you…We could not do this without all of the work all of you out there do…so a big thank you. And remember if you have an injured federal claim and you need assistance….I am here to help!

C-ya next time of to get my coffee warmed up. Keep sending those emails and questions and comments. I appreciate hearing from all of you.