After an injury, there are many procedures, treatments, and rehabilitation appointments to get you back to work. While most of these will be medical, there are also vocational rehabilitation services you may need to move forward with your life after an injury.
Physical rehab focuses on your physical recovery; occupational rehab focuses on skills and motor control; vocational rehab focuses on getting you back to work. Some of the hardest parts of getting back to work after an injury are changing careers, focusing on new skills and tasks your disability allows, and finding new workplaces that adapt to your disabilities. The Pennsylvania Office of Vocational Rehabilitation (OVR) has counselors and training to cover all of these needs as part of your recovery in a Workers’ Comp case. Whether vocational rehab actually accomplishes these goals – and whether it helps the worker or the employer – is up for debate.
For help with a Workers’ Comp claim and return to work, call Cardamone Law’s Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Lawyers at (267) 651-7945 today.
What is Vocational Rehabilitation?
“Rehabilitation” after an injury means undergoing treatments, services, and therapies to get you back to your normal life. This usually comes in the form of a few different types of therapies and rehabilitations:
- Physical rehabilitation focuses on getting you physically well again. While many injuries are permanent and cause permanent disabilities, physical rehab gets you back to walking around and performing other physical activities to the best of your ability, given the disability.
- Occupational rehabilitation, unlike the name might imply, gets you back to doing activities of daily living and other everyday tasks outside of your “occupation.” This includes things like feeding yourself, writing, lifting, carrying, and other tasks you need to perform. It may also help you learn and figure out adaptations that might help you do these tasks with your new disability.
- Vocational rehabilitation focuses on getting you back to work. This might involve skills assessments to help you choose a new career and even job retraining to help you get prepared to enter a new stage of your work life.
There’s ultimately quite a bit of overlap between occupational therapy and vocational therapy, and some of the services you receive in vocational rehab are probably going to be performed by occupational therapists.
Nonetheless, this is often a separate therapy in the course of your recovery and does not necessarily have your recovery as its goals.
Do I Need to Go to Occupational Rehabilitation for Workers’ Comp?
Whether you need occupational rehabilitation as part of your Workers’ Comp claim will depend on a lot of factors:
- The severity of your injury
- Its effect on your specific job tasks
- Whether you could easily return to your same or a similar job without this rehab
- How long it takes before you can return
- Whether your physical abilities and job skills are hampered by your disability
- What jobs and work are available to you after your recovery, taking into account any new limitations your disability causes.
Rehabilitation is often a long process, and whether vocational rehab is necessary might not be obvious from the beginning; we often have to wait and see how things go.
When Do I Need Vocational Rehab?
Vocational rehabilitation often comes in the later stages of your recovery.
When you face a serious injury, your immediate concerns are medical care to repair injuries and potentially save your life. After that, you can focus on recovering, going through physical therapy, and getting your life back on track.
In the later portion of that care, you may start worrying about getting back to work and what vocational rehab services you will need. Your employer will certainly worry about getting you back to work and off benefits around this time.
In many cases, this comes around the time you reach maximum medical improvement (MMI), and it becomes time to assess whether and when you can return to work and what limitations that return to work will entail.
Will Vocational Rehabilitation Help Me or My Employer/Insurance Carrier?
Vocational rehabilitation should, ideally, give you the skills and training to get back to work, but your employer and their Workers’ Comp carrier will often try to use this against you.
Employers and Workers’ Comp carriers like to see vocational rehab as proof that you are now retrained and can return to work. These specific determinations actually come from different appointments and assessments from doctors and from Functional Capacity Evaluations.
Talk to our York, PA Workers’ Compensation lawyers about whether vocational rehab is necessary and what steps you can take before and during these appointments to protect your benefits from being shut off because you are “better” now.
Who Performs Vocational Rehab Services?
Vocational rehab is offered through Pennsylvania’s Office of Vocational Rehab (OVR). OVR has bureaus and offices across the Commonwealth to match people with services and get them the services they need.
You may be able to use private services or services of your choice instead, depending on access to these services. For example, if you live out of state but were injured while working in Pennsylvania, it might not be practical to use Pennsylvania’s OVR services.
The actual therapist you work with will likely be an occupational therapist or another professional with similar training.
Who Pays for Vocational Rehab?
Like the rest of the medical care and services you will receive to treat your injuries and get you back to work, this should all be covered under Workers’ Compensation. Our attorneys can help you get your benefits granted and see that these services are included under that coverage.
Does Vocational Rehab Involve Job Retraining and Job Placement?
Making sure that you are prepared to go back out into the world and work a job that you can handle with your disability is the primary focus of vocational rehab. This can focus on far more than just the physical skills, and job training and placement are often part of your vocational rehab.
Job retraining might involve classes or one-on-one work to help you adapt to the ways business and industry might have changed since your initial injury. Especially if you have been disabled by your work injury for a long time, things might be quite different!
Getting you actually placed into a job is part of the process in Workers’ Comp, which involves not just OVR services but also labor market surveys and other elements of your case. We can help you understand exactly what will be required in your case.
Call Our Pennsylvania Workers’ Comp Specialists for Help
When pursuing a claim, call Cardamone Law’s Reading, PA Workers’ Comp lawyers at (267) 651-7945 today.
