It is well-recognized that remaining at work after a workplace injury if possible, or returning to the work environment as soon as possible after a workplace injury, both have a positive impact on the healing process, and are in the best interests of the employee and employer alike.

MSU has a Stay-at-Work/Return-to-Work Policy to help employees stay at, or return to, meaningful, productive employment following an injury or illness. The goal is to help an injured employee either remain in their current role, or to find a temporary work assignment if that employee is not capable of immediately returning to his/her regular position. Temporary assignments can modify duties and hours.

Time Loss Tracking

If remaining at work or returning to work after injury involves working reduced hours, employees may receive workers’ compensation wage benefits that help compensate.  If this is the case, it is important to track your time.  Please work with your supervisor on this, using this Work Comp Time Tracking form.

Importantly:

  1. If you are temporarily unable to work, you might be eligible to receive weekly compensation of 66 2/3% of your gross wages at the time of injury, calculated over four pay periods prior to the date of injury, up to the maximum weekly rate determined annually by the MT Department of Labor & Industry. Taxes are not taken out of Work comp indemnity payments.
  2. Compensation will not be paid for the first 32 hours or 4 days loss of wages, whichever is less, that the worker is totally disabled and unable to work because of an injury (MCA 39-71-736 (1) (a)). If the worker is totally disabled and unable to work in any capacity for 21 days or longer, compensation may be paid retroactively to the first day of total wage loss (but will be required to repay any sick/annual leave if it was used). In some cases, injured workers may incur the 32 hours over the course of several months. Supervisors should use the Work Comp Time Tracking form to help track and verify these hours. Once 32 hours are reached, send the form to the claim coordinator, and continue to send them every two weeks as long as the employee is off work to ensure that the injured employee receives timely benefits.
  3. Employees may use sick leave, annual leave or comp time during the 4 day/32 hour waiting period; and may continue to use it afterwards, if needed, unless they choose to have time loss covered by work comp indemnity benefits. Keep in mind that for extended absences from work, MSU benefits continue to accrue when employees use annual or sick leave but they do not when they are completely off work and receiving work comp time loss benefits.

This program, by its very nature, is temporary.  Job modifications or initial transitional employment assignments will only be provided for a specified period of time, and have a typical duration of six to twelve weeks. Extensions are considered on a case-by-case basis. If the injured employee chooses to decline a temporary transitional employment assignment it may result in loss of workers’ compensation time loss benefits (MCA 39-71-1042 (5) (a)).

For questions, call 406-994-6889.