Compassion, on 15 August 2014 - 09:43 AM, said:
hi
does anyone know the case/s that a judge said that with Vocational independence, must show that your coping skills/pacing strategies are transferable to the jobs recommended? not sure if have worded correctly.
Thanks
xx

As the ACC has disregarded the legislation on this matter there is much confusion in regards to what constitutes vocational independence.
The way it works is that if there is no medical remedy to return you to your pre-injury occupation the ACC may explore ways to reduce their liability by funding rehabilitation into a new occupation to the extent that you gain an earnings capacity. If you succeed in getting a job under than you occupational title then ACC are required to fund the difference between the earnings of your old job and the earnings of the new job.
The ACC arrange for an occupational specialist to quantify each of your qualifications, experience and skill level in your old occupation and then determine what occupation those qualifications, experience and skills can be used in a new occupation together with what further qualifications, experience and skills will be needed in order to be employable on the open market. A medical assessor then determines whether or not the individual work task activities of the new occupation is are in conflict with the medical certificates and other medical reports. The assessors must be subservient to the actual facts concerning yourself and may not concern themselves with generic assumptions.
If you feel that you are having coping difficulties because of your injury then of course the medical reports must be factored into the employability in the new occupation suggested.
The next stage is that the ACC manage the rehabilitation process to the extent that funding arrangements are made for the various educational courses to obtain the right qualifications and then facilitate the opportunity to gain the necessary experience level in order to gain the necessary skills to be employable in a new occupation.
Once the ACC have reason to believe that rehabilitation into a new occupation has been achieved it is only then that the ACC can arrange for a measurement of that new capacity and make a decision whether to continue to rehabilitation or bring to an end entitlements of earnings compensation when making a decision that you are vocationally independent.
Do not forget that since the ACC were required to rely upon the new occupational categories under the Australian New Zealand Classification of Occupations there is a new feature included which is a skill rating. The rating is 1 to 5. this means if you're preinjury occupation was 3 then you must be rehabilitated back into a skill rating of 3. Obviously if you are a 747 pilot you will not be rehabilitated into a office clerk such as an IRD investigator who has almost the lowest level of skill rating.