Schedule Loss of Use in NY: What Your SLU Award Is Worth

You reached maximum medical improvement. Your doctor says your shoulder will never be 100% again. Now the insurance carrier wants to settle your schedule loss of use award — and their number feels low.

If that sounds familiar, you are not alone. Schedule loss of use is one of the most important — and most misunderstood — parts of workers' compensation in New York. It is also the part where insurance companies fight hardest to underpay you.

Here is what you need to know about how SLU works, what your award could look like, and why the percentage your doctor assigns matters more than almost anything else in your case.

What Is Schedule Loss of Use?

Schedule loss of use — often called SLU — is a workers' comp benefit for permanent partial disability to specific body parts. Under the NYS Workers' Compensation Board guidelines, if a work injury leaves you with lasting impairment to a scheduled body part, you are entitled to a lump-sum payment based on how much function you lost.

SLU is about specific parts of your body — not your whole body, and not your work status. This is the most important distinction in workers' comp. Wage replacement benefits compensate you for lost earnings. SLU compensates you for permanent physical impairment, regardless of whether you are working.

If you are unsure whether your injury qualifies for workers' compensation, learn more about the types of cases we handle.

Scheduled body parts include:

• Arms and hands — shoulder, elbow, wrist, fingers
• Legs and feet — hip, knee, ankle, toes
• Eyes and ears — vision loss, hearing loss

SLU does not cover the head, neck, back, or spine. Those injuries fall under a different classification (non-schedule permanent disability).

How Is Your SLU Percentage Calculated?

After you reach maximum medical improvement (MMI), your treating doctor evaluates your permanent impairment and assigns a percentage of loss. This is based on the 2018 NYS Workers' Compensation Board Impairment Guidelines.

Range of motion is the dominant factor. How far you can bend, extend, and rotate the injured body part drives the SLU percentage more than anything else. The other factors that come up in medical reports — strength deficits, functional limitations, MRI results — play a supporting role, but they do not generate SLU points on their own the way range of motion does.

Here is how the different factors actually work:

Primary factors — these directly determine your SLU percentage:

1. Range of motion deficits — the primary basis for your SLU percentage
2. Special considerations — for each scheduled body part, there is a list of specific diagnoses that qualify for additional points on top of range of motion. If you have one of those diagnoses, you get extra consideration
3. Joint replacements — completely different rules. A total knee replacement, for example, is approximately 35% if considered a successful surgery and approximately 50% if the outcome was not successful

Supporting factors — these appear in reports but do not directly determine the SLU calculation:

• MRI and imaging results — do not directly factor into the percentage. An MRI can support the credibility of your range of motion findings, but the MRI result itself does not earn points
• Strength deficits — discussed in reports but do not independently generate significant SLU points

The insurance carrier's doctor — often through an Independent Medical Examination (IME) — will also assign a percentage. Their number is almost always lower than your doctor's.

The Workers' Compensation Board judge ultimately decides the final percentage, often somewhere between the two opinions. It is also possible to negotiate — for example, when the two doctors' numbers are within a few percentage points, the parties may agree to meet in the middle through a stipulation.

What Does the SLU Award Actually Pay?

Each body part has a set number of weeks assigned by New York law:

Your award = percentage of loss x maximum weeks x 2/3 of your average weekly wage (capped at the statutory maximum rate for your date of injury).

For example: A construction worker with a 40% loss of use of the arm would receive 40% x 312 weeks = 124.8 weeks of benefits at their compensation rate.

You Can Get SLU While Still Working — and Never Lose a Day

This is the part that surprises most people.

You could never lose a day from work. You could be making your full salary. And you could still end up with a substantial SLU award — potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars — if you have permanent impairment in multiple body parts.

Here is why: each individual body part injury may not be severe enough to stop you from doing your job. The range of motion loss in one knee, one shoulder, or one wrist might be moderate. But when you add it all together — both knees, both shoulders, a wrist, an ankle — the cumulative SLU award adds up quickly. If your average weekly wage maxes out the compensation rate, the numbers can be significant.

And because you never lost time from work, there is no wage replacement to offset the SLU. You receive the full amount as a lump sum.

SLU is a way to have your cake and eat it too. You can keep your job, make your full salary, get raises, retire with a full pension — and still receive a substantial SLU award. This is completely legal. It is how the system works.

The counterintuitive part: a single severe back injury (which is non-schedule) might have a lower total value than multiple moderate injuries to scheduled body parts like knees, shoulders, and wrists — even though the back injury feels worse.

SLU Is Not Just for Physical Trades

Most articles about SLU focus on construction workers and tradespeople. Those are common cases, and for good reason — certain occupations produce predictable, routine SLU injury patterns:

Construction workers and laborers: Shoulder and knee injuries dominate. Repetitive overhead work, falls from scaffolds, and heavy lifting create specific impairment patterns.

Elevator mechanics: Hand, wrist, and arm injuries from working in tight elevator pits. Crush injuries and repetitive gripping produce measurable grip-strength deficits.

Factory and warehouse workers: Hand and arm injuries from machinery, repetitive assembly, and lifting. Amputations — even partial finger amputations — carry specific scheduled values.

Transit workers: Cumulative knee wear after decades of walking tracks, climbing in and out of cabs, and standing on moving trains. Hearing loss from subway noise is also a scheduled loss — and many transit workers do not realize they can file for hearing loss SLU after retirement (there is a 90-day mandatory waiting period after your last day of employment, then a two-year window to file).

But do not assume you need to work in construction or a trade to qualify. Anyone with a work-related injury that causes permanent impairment to a scheduled body part can receive an SLU. Carpal tunnel from office work, ergonomic injuries from a poorly set up workstation, occupational hearing loss, or even a single accident — the benefit is based on what body part was injured and how much function you lost, not what your job title is.

Learn more about the types of cases we handle.

Workers approaching retirement: SLU awards survive retirement. Even if your wage replacement benefits end, your SLU entitlement does not. For schedule injuries alone, retirement timing is less critical — the SLU award is yours regardless. The timing complexity arises when you have both schedule and non-schedule injuries, where retirement can affect the non-schedule portion of your case.

How Do Insurance Companies Underpay SLU?

The carrier sends you to their doctor for an Independent Medical Examination (IME). IME results vary — sometimes the carrier's number is close to your doctor's, sometimes it is significantly lower, and occasionally it is higher or recommends additional treatment. That said, IME reports generally produce results that, if adopted, would be less favorable financially. Since range of motion is the dominant factor, the key dispute is usually over those measurements.

This is why having a lawyer who understands the impairment guidelines — and who can challenge a low IME percentage with real medical evidence — matters so much.

At Law for Workers, we represent injured workers exclusively. We have never represented an employer or insurance company. That means when we challenge an SLU percentage, there is no conflict — our only job is getting you the full value of your permanent injury.

We also have deep experience with IME videography. We train our clients and their families on how to properly video-record IME exams. When there is video evidence of a rushed or incomplete exam, it is much harder for the carrier to defend a lowball percentage at the hearing.

What Should You Do Next?

• Understand how SLU negotiation works. The carrier's IME doctor assigns one percentage. Your treating doctor assigns another. In most cases, the final number lands somewhere between the two — the Workers' Compensation Board judge decides, or the parties negotiate and agree on a figure. Having a lawyer who can build a strong record around your doctor's findings makes a real difference.
• Get your treating doctor to document your impairment thoroughly. Range of motion is the primary factor — make sure every measurement is recorded carefully. Special consideration diagnoses should be noted as well.
• Know your timeline. SLU begins at MMI — there is no deadline to file, but delays can complicate your case.
• Talk to a workers' comp lawyer before you accept any offer. In most cases, an SLU award is final. However, unlike a settlement, the case remains open. With evidence of a worsening condition, it may be possible to seek a higher schedule — though this is uncommon.

Hurt on the job and dealing with a permanent injury? We can help. Call (718) 770-3708 for a free consultation — no fee unless we win.

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