15/03/2024
There are new changes to the WorkCover legislation which will take effect 31 March 2024. The most dramatic changes are those with respect to WorkCover claims for psychiatric injury. A brief summary of the changes is as follows:
1. To have a claim for psychiatric injury accepted, the psychiatric injury must cause significant behavioural, cognitive or psychological dysfunction and it must be formally diagnosed in accordance with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
2. For a psychiatric injury to be accepted as connected to employment so as to have a WorkCover claim accepted, it must have predominantly arisen of out the course of employment or if the mental injury was pre-existing, it must predominantly have been aggravated, accelerated, exacerbated etc by the employment relationship.
3. A person who sustains a psychiatric injury predominantly due to work-related stress or burnout that has arisen out of events that may be considered usual or typical and reasonably expected to occur in the course of the worker's duties, will not be able to make a WorkCover claim. The only exception to this being that if the mental injury has been predominantly caused by traumatic events experienced at work and those traumatic events are considered usual or typical and reasonably expected to occur in the course of the worker's duties then the claim will be accepted.
4. If you seek to receive weekly payments post 130 weeks, that is more than 130 weeks of weekly payments, there is a new legal test. You must undergo an assessment pursuant to the Guide to the Evaluation of Psychiatric Impairment for Clinicians and rate 20% or more and be determined to have no current work capacity which is likely to continue indefinitely.
5. If you have received 130 weeks of weekly payments and you have been able to return to work but for limited hours, before you can receive a top-up payment from the WorkCover insurer you must be assessed pursuant to the Guide to the Evaluation of Psychiatric Impairment for Clinicians and rate 20% or more.
The above changes with respect to weekly payments only apply to people who are not currently in receipt of weekly payments post 130 weeks, or are not currently in receipt of a top-up payments from the WorkCover insurer.
