Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf signed House Bill 1840, the “Protz Fix” which was a bill presented to try and fix consequences that resulted from a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision.

In 1996 workers’ comp reforms allowed employers to request an Impairment Rating Evaluation (IRE) after an injured worker had been off the workforce for 104 weeks, allowing employers to cap benefits and reduce costs. In 2017 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that IREs were invalid. In Protz v. Workers’ Comp. Appeal Bd. the court ruled that the methodology used in the IRE process was unconstitutional since using the term “most recent edition” of the AMA Guides was unconstitutional. The wording left the authority to establish criteria for evaluating impairment to the AMA, not the General Assembly, and the guides can be updated by the AMA without input from the Pennsylvania General Assembly. As a result of this, the Pennsylvania Compensation Ratings Bureau filed for an increase of loss costs of 6.06% in the middle of policy year 2017.

The Protz fix reestablishes that the AMA Guides, 6^th Edition, are to be used when determining impairment levels of injured workers. It is intended to reinstate the IRE process and save employers in insurance costs. Under the old system, generally, if the impairment rating was found to be less than 50 percent the employee’s status could be changed to partial disability. Under the new bill, the threshold has been changed to 35 percent. Maximum burial expenses for workplace fatalities increased from $3,000 to $7,000.

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