Does workers’ comp cover time off for follow-up appointments?

Q           Aside from initial treatment, does workers’ compensation cover nonexempt employees’ time off to attend follow-up appointments related to their injury?

Short answer: Missed work time may qualify for temporary disability or partial wage replacement benefits when the appointment is injury-related and can’t reasonably be scheduled outside working hours.

By way of brief background, workers’ compensation is a no-fault insurance benefit that provides two core benefits for employees injured on the job: medical care reasonably necessary to treat the injury and wage replacement benefits when the injury prevents the employee from working. Follow-up appointments, such as post-injury evaluations, physical therapy, imaging, or specialist visits, sit at the intersection of these two concepts. They’re clearly part of medical treatment, but whether the time spent attending them is “paid” raises practical wage and hour questions, especially for nonexempt employees who are compensated by the hour.

Nonexempt status matters because these employees are generally paid only for hours actually worked. Unlike salaried exempt employees, there’s no obligation to maintain full pay when work is missed, absent a specific legal requirement or employer policy. Workers’ comp may fill that gap but only under certain conditions.