If you are temporarily put completely out of work in Arizona because of a work-related injury or medical condition, you may be eligible for temporary total disability benefits under the Arizona workers’ compensation system.
The Matt Fendon Law Group helps Arizona injured employees with workers’ comp benefits claims, including for costs of medical treatment for injuries and for workers’ compensation payments to compensate for lost wages.
Workers’ compensation rates are calculated using complex formulas and standards. If you have a question or need help filing a claim for workers’ compensation benefits, call us at 800-229-3880 to speak with a workers’ compensation lawyer. We are available to take your call at any hour every day of the year.
How Does Temporary Total Disability Fit into Arizona Workers’ Compensation?
Arizona workers’ compensation law offers different kinds of benefits based on the nature of your work-related injury or illness. Some benefits are temporary in duration, meaning that they will end when you are fully recovered, while others are permanent when you reach your point of maximum improvement but are still disabled to some degree.
A temporary total disability prevents you from working but allows for full recovery or transition to a temporary partial disability. In the latter case, you can return to work while still receiving medical treatment.
What is the Difference Between Temporary Total and Temporary Partial Disability (TPD) in Arizona?
Although they are similar, there is a distinction between the two kinds of temporary disability benefits you can receive under Arizona workers’ compensation law. Here is how you can tell them apart.
Common Elements of Temporary Total and Partial Disability Compensation
The following requirements are applicable to both temporary total disability and temporary partial disability benefits:
- You must be receiving medical treatment for your disability. Your temporary disability benefits end when you are either fully healed or have reached your maximum medical improvement and your medical treatment stops. This will also be the point in which you determine if you qualify for permanent disability benefits.
- Your claim may be denied if you do not meet all requirements in filing a workers’ compensation claim to request temporary disability benefits.
- Under Arizona law, the workers’ compensation insurance company has the right to have you undergo a medical examination from an employer-approved physician at least once.
- Income compensation is not paid for the first seven consecutive days after the injury. If you suffer a total or partial on-the-job disability that lasts for less than seven consecutive days, then you are not eligible for workers’ compensation lost income payment benefits.
- If your total or partial incapacity to work extends for more than seven days after the injury but for less than two weeks total, you are eligible for compensation payments beginning on the eighth day after the disabling injury or illness and continuing up to the 13th day of your disability.
- If your disability continues for two weeks or more after the day of the injury, compensation is computed from the day of the disabling injury or condition.
| Consecutive days missed from work | Benefit status |
| 0 to 7 | No compensation is payable |
| 8 to 13 | Deduct the first seven days, and compensation is payable for the remaining days. |
| 14 or more | Compensation is payable from the first day of disability. |
- Both kinds of temporary disability benefits are subject to a maximum average monthly wage cap. The Industrial Commission of Arizona (the ICA) establishes this maximum wage amount annually. If your actual average monthly wage was higher than the ICA-established maximum wage, then you can only receive compensation based on the ICA maximum wage limit. For 2024, the maximum monthly wage for Arizona temporary partial disability calculation is $5,663.04.
- There is no set time limit on how long you can receive temporary disability benefits compensation. How long your temporary benefits continue depends on when you are able to either recover completely from your workplace injury and your claim is closed or if you have recovered as much as is medically possible. In the latter scenario, you may qualify for benefits for permanent disabilities once your medical treatment ends.
How Temporary Total Disability Differs from Temporary Partial Disability
Now that we understand how temporary total and partial disabilities are similar, let’s see how temporary total disability is distinct from its temporary partial counterpart.
You Cannot Work Under a Temporary Total Disability
Temporary total disability means that you cannot perform job duties in any capacity.
Unlike temporary partial disability, in which your doctor clears to work in either a limited (light duty) or regular capacity while you are still being treated, your doctor restricts you from working at all with a temporary total disability.
Your Disability Compensation Payments are Calculated Differently
The Arizona workers’ compensation statute that governs temporary total disability is ARS 23-1045(A). Under this statute, if you are temporarily, totally unable to work, you can recover compensation payments of sixty-six and two-thirds percent of your average monthly wage before you become disabled.
This is different from temporary partial disability. With TPD, your workers’ compensation is based on a percentage of the difference between your average monthly wage and the income you earn from light-duty or regular work.
You Receive More Frequent Payments
While you are temporarily and totally unable to work, you will receive payments every two weeks once your temporary total disability payments begin.
Under temporary partial disability, you receive payments every 30 days.
You Are Eligible for a Dependent Benefit Payment
If you have a spouse or dependent children, you are eligible to receive an additional $25 per month on top of your temporary total disability payment.
Note that this additional allowance is not based on how many dependents you have but is a total monthly benefit increase of exactly $25.
Temporary Total Disability Benefits Can Convert to Temporary Partial Benefits
If your medical care leads your doctor to conclude that you can return to work while still receiving ongoing medical treatment, they will clear you light or regular work duty.
Your doctor will then notify your employer’s workers’ comp insurance company. From this point, your status will change to receive temporary partial disability benefits.
Here is a brief summary of the main differences between temporary total disability benefits in Arizona and temporary partial benefits:
| Consideration | Temporary Total Disability | Temporary Partial Disability |
| How the disability affects your ability to work | You cannot work in any capacity. | You can work with either restrictions (light duty) or regular work. |
| How your disability compensation is calculated | Sixty-six and two-thirds percent of your average monthly wage. | Sixty-six and two-thirds percent of the difference between your average monthly wage before the injury and the wages that you earn thereafter. |
| How often you receive compensation | Every two weeks. | Every 30 days. |
Contact the Matt Fendon Law Group About Your Arizona Workers’ Compensation Claim
Navigating between a temporary total disability benefits claim, a temporary partial disability claim, or even a permanent disability claim can become tricky without experience.
This does not even include complex formulas that workers’ compensation insurers use to calculate your average monthly wage, which can be frustrating for a worker to understand.
At the Matt Fendon Law Group, our workers’ compensation benefits lawyers know how to take your Arizona workers’ comp case through all the benefits schedules and regulations. We will ensure that you receive a fair settlement for your claims as an injured employee.
We have helped many injured workers just like you receive the payments for medical costs and the indemnity benefits they deserve. We can help you, too.
Don’t leave your TTD benefits to chance. Call our law firm today at 800-229-3880 to talk with one of our workers’ compensation specialists about your workers’ comp case:
- We offer free initial consultations for workers’ compensation claims and are available by telephone 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
- For your convenience, we have law offices in Phoenix, Scottsdale, Prescott, Tucson, and Flagstaff.
If you prefer to communicate with us online to ask a question about an on-the-job injury and your workers’ compensation claim, you can contact us online..
