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| Introduction to the 1996 Florida Uniform Permanent Impairment Rating Schedule
BACKGROUND Section 440.1 5(3)(a)2, Florida Statutes, as amended, requires that the State of Florida establish a guide for use in the evaluation of permanent impairments for the calculation of impairment benefits payable and to establish the permanent impair- ment necessary for wage-loss benefits payable under Section 440. 15(3)(a)3, Florida Statutes, as amended. Moreover, “This schedule must be based on medically or scientifically demonstrable findings as well as the systems and criteria set forth in the American Medical Association’s Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment; the Snellen Charts, published by the American Medical Association Committee for Eye Injuries; and the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry Disability Schedules. This schedule should be based upon objective findings. The schedule shall be more comprehensive than the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment and shall expand the areas already addressed and address additional areas not currently contained in the guides.”This Guide, known also as the schedule, is established by the three-member panel, set forth in Section 440.1 3( 12)(a), working in cooperation with the Division of Workers’ Compensation. In establishing this Guide, the three-member panel and the Division were assisted by an advisory panel of representative health care specialties and by a member of the Florida Bar.Evaluation or rating of permanent disability has long been recognized as an important and complex subject. In the past much confusion has resulted from inadequate understanding by physicians and others of the scope of medical responsibility in the evaluation of permanent disability and the difference between “permanent disability” and “permanent impairment.”It is vitally important for every physician to be aware of his or her proper role in the evaluation of permanent disability under any private or public program for the disabled. It is equally important that physicians have the necessary authorita- tive material to assist them in competently fulfilling their particular responsibil- ity—the evaluation of permanent impairment. It is the purpose of this book to correct a past confusion of terms and to provide a series of practical guides to the evaluation of various types of permanent impairments.The following explanation of generally used terms in programs for the disabled is provided.
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