At the end of your workers’ compensation claim for work injury, the workers’ compensation insurer may issue you with a document called a “Notice of Assessment”. This document will list all your injuries sustained in your work accident and accord a degree of permanent impairment assessed by a doctor for each injury, and a total of the degree of permanent impairment assessed for all your injuries.

Taking your body’s overall functioning as 100%, a doctor trained in permanent impairment assessments will evaluate the degree your work injury has impaired your bodily function.  The degree of permanent impairment is assessed as a percentage and is based on the impact the injury has on your capacity to undertake your everyday living activities. For example, your back injury sustained at work, may be assessed as resulting in permanent impairment of your capacity to undertake your everyday normal living activities of 10%.

Assessment of permanent impairment for work injuries in Queensland is undertaken in accordance with the Guide to Evaluation of Permanent Impairment, or “GEPI” as it is also known. Doctors who undertake these assessments must be accredited in evaluating permanent impairment under this Guide.

So at the end of your workers’ compensation claim, Workcover or the self insurer, will have your work injury reviewed by a GEPI trained doctor and ask for their assessment of what degree of permanent impairment your work injury has caused. The workers’ compensation insurer then issues you with a Notice of Assessment stipulating the degree of permanent impairment assessed.

If the degree of permanent impairment stated in your Notice of Assessment is stated as more than 0%,  then you will be made an offer of lump sum compensation when receiving your Notice of Assessment.  The higher the degree of impairment, the greater the lump sum offer will be.  Normally, the offer is around $3,000 for each 1% of permanent impairment assessed (eg. 5% degree of permanent impairment will result in an offer of approximately $15,000).