Section 305 – Vocational Rehabilitation
This section includes several provisions to strengthen existing programs that help injured workers get back to work:
1) Extends existing vocational rehabilitation opportunities under FECA for workers who are totally disabled to those who are partially disabled as well.
2) Authorizes DOL to pay a federal employer the salary of a beneficiary for up to three years as an incentive to hire workers off of the FECA program rolls. Current law permits these payments only to non-federal employers.
3) Makes compliance with the Return to Work plan developed between the program and the beneficiary a condition of receiving continued benefits (except this condition would not apply to beneficiaries who are over the age of retirement).
Section 306 – Reporting Requirements
This section requires the Secretary to require beneficiaries to report any outside income they receive to the Department of Labor. An employee who fails to comply will lose the right to receive compensation.
Section 307 – Disability Management Review; Independent Medical Examinations
This section requires an independent medical assessment of disability and potential for return to work for beneficiaries after six months in the program and on a regularly scheduled basis thereafter, but no less frequently than every three years. This does not change existing law under which a FECA beneficiary may choose to see his or her own doctor for treatment and initial assessment. Moreover, employing agencies may request that DOL obtain an independent medical examination at any time, and, if the agency makes the request before DOL has conducted such an examination, DOL must grant the agency‘s request.
Section 308 – Waiting Period
Because minor workplace injuries often heal quickly, FECA provides a three-day waiting period before compensation begins. For postal employees, FECA‘s three-day waiting period comes immediately after the injury, but for non-postal workers the waiting period does not comes until after the end of the 45-day continuation-of-pay period.
Section 308 begins the three-day waiting period immediately after a work-related injury for all injured employees. As under current law, injured employees may receive FECA compensation for those three days if the period of disability exceeds 14 days.
Section 309 – Election of Benefits
If an individual is eligible for compensation benefits both under FECA and under CSRS or FERS or another retirement system for federal employees, the individual must elect which benefits to