PPD stands for Permanent Partial Disability, a benefit paid by your employer’s insurance company as provided by the Arkansas Workers’ Compensation Commission (AWCC). This refers to a situation where you have been assessed as having a permanent injury. Your doctor is the one who typically assigns your permanent impairment rating, and the insurance company is responsible to pay the proper PPD rates when you have completed your treatment.
Your impairment rating is typically provided in the form of a percentage. An example would be if you injured your head, shoulders, neck, mid or lower back, which is classified as the body as a whole, you would use your impairment rating (let’s say 10 percent) and multiply it by 450. That means that 450 multiplied by 10 percent yields 45 weeks of workers’ compensation benefits.
The PPD benefits you receive are generally 75 percent of your Temporary Total Disability (TTD) rate. Multiply the number of weeks by the PPD rate to figure out your benefits.
If your injuries involve just your extremities, the benefits you receive for your rating are all that you are entitled to, even if you cannot perform the job you have been doing. However, should the injuries you sustained be to your body as a whole, you can be entitled to additional permanent impairment called wage loss disability.
Wage loss benefits are agreed to by a Judge or by the parties involved. The amount is calculated according to work history, injuries, permanent restrictions, age, education, and the inclination to return to work. This means there is no standard wage loss benefit across the board. Again, Arkansas Work Comp Laws only allow wage loss disability to be awarded for whole body impairments. Under Arkansas Law, whole body impairments can be assigned to the back injuries, neck injuries, shoulder injuries and brain injuries.