What Is California Labor Code §4061: Permanent Disability Notice and Advance?

Notice either that no permanent disability indemnity will be paid because the employer alleges the employee has no permanent impairment or limitations resulting from the injury or notice of the amount of permanent disability indemnity determined by the employer to be payable.

What Is Labor Code 4061?

Labor Code 4061 sets the deadline for your permanent disability notice and decides how a disputed medical report gets reviewed.

Once your temporary disability payments end, your employer must do one of three things. It can tell you a dollar amount of permanent disability is owed. It can deny permanent disability and say why. Or it can say your condition is not yet stable enough to rate.

This section does not cover every medical dispute. A utilization review fight goes through Labor Code section 4610 instead. A dispute over a medical network doctor’s diagnosis or treatment choice goes through Labor Code sections 4616.3 and 4616.4.

Labor Code 4061 applies whether or not you have a lawyer, though the review path differs for each group.

What Must the Permanent Disability Notice Say?

The notice must give a dollar amount of permanent disability owed, explain why none is owed, or say your condition is not yet stable enough to rate.

Your employer sends this notice on a form set by the administrative director. The timing matches your final temporary disability check. When permanent disability is owed, the notice must give the dollar figure and explain how it was reached. It must also say whether you will need future medical care, and whether a payment will be deferred.

Sometimes your doctor has not yet found your condition permanent and stationary, meaning it will not improve further. When that has not happened, the notice says your condition will keep being monitored, and your employer must still send a follow-up notice once a doctor reaches that point.

When Do Permanent Disability Advance Payments Start and Stop?

Advance payments generally must begin within 14 days after your last temporary disability check and continue until a final amount is set.

Labor Code section 4650 sets that 14-day start date. Your employer then pays its own estimate every two weeks, the same schedule as temporary disability, until the estimate is paid in full or a final amount is reached. See how Labor Code 4650 times every disability payment for the related temporary disability deadlines.

Two situations can delay that payment until a final award. One: your employer offers you work paying at least 85 percent of your old wages. Two: you already earn 100 percent or more of your old pay. Win an award later anyway, and the amount owed still gets calculated back to an earlier date. That date is either when those payments stopped, or the day your condition became permanent and stationary, whichever came first.

What Happens if an Advance Payment Is Late?

A late disability payment is increased 10 percent and paid to you automatically, without your having to ask.

Labor Code section 4650 adds a 10 percent increase to a late temporary or permanent disability payment. Your employer must add the increase on its own. Two narrow exceptions apply. The first covers a payment due within 14 days after you submit your claim form. The second covers that same 14-day window, if your employer sends the notice state regulations require, explaining why it cannot yet decide whether temporary disability payments are owed.

This 10 percent increase penalizes a late payment. It does not settle a separate dispute over whether the correct amount is being paid at all.

What if You Disagree With the Rating or the Notice?

If you or the claims administrator object to the treating doctor’s report, the dispute usually goes to a QME.

Labor Code 4061 also controls what happens if either side objects to the treating doctor’s opinion on permanent impairment or future medical care. What happens next depends on whether you have a workers’ compensation attorney.

If you are not represented, see the unrepresented worker’s QME process under Labor Code 4062.1 for the full steps. You have a right to a new panel if you have good cause to decline the first evaluator.

If you are represented, see the panel-strike process under Labor Code 4062.2 for more detail. You and the claims administrator can also agree on one evaluator instead of using the panel.

Once a QME evaluates an unrepresented worker, the administrative director has 20 days to calculate the rating. The director then serves it on both sides. The rating itself follows the rating rules in Labor Code 4660 or 4660.1, depending on your injury date.

Part of your impairment may trace to an earlier injury or an outside cause, letting the claims administrator raise apportionment under Labor Code section 4663 and Labor Code section 4664. For an unrepresented worker, a workers’ compensation judge reviews it first.

An evaluation obtained outside these two processes is not admissible at the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board, or WCAB. Using the correct form from the start protects your claim.

What Records Should You Keep?

Save every notice, medical report, and payment record, and write down the date each one arrived.

Keep the claim form, every medical report, the permanent disability notice, each payment notice, and any letter about a delay or denial. Keep the envelope from a mailed notice, or the email with its date and time.

• A short timeline: injury date, treatment start date, the date a doctor found you permanent and stationary, and the date of each notice or payment.
• A short list of what is in dispute, such as a low rating, a missing body part, or a stopped payment.

A focused list like this is more useful than a general complaint when you ask for help.

A permanent disability notice usually arrives well into a claim, after medical treatment and the temporary disability period. To see how each stage connects, read our guide to how a California workers’ compensation claim moves from filing to closing.

If you are dealing with a permanent disability notice, a stalled advance payment, or a QME dispute, start by gathering the records above. Write down the key dates. Yazdchi Law P.C. serves injured workers across California from its Palmdale office. It reviews each matter individually and does not take every case. Call (661) 273-1780 or use the contact form to ask about a free consultation.