If you’re feeling pressure from the insurance company or anyone to return to work, you should talk to your lawyer and see if it’s reasonable to try and get you back to work at that time or if it’s unreasonable because you’re still not better. The whole point of the workers compensation system is to be there for you during the time that you are unable to work, regardless really of how long that is. And we can talk about different cases in terms of how long you could theoretically stay out on workers comp for. But if you’re—and this does happen from time to time—people who are, and it goes back to the same issue, unrepresented injured workers talking with adjusters about their case, and oftentimes adjusters will make comments or do other things to make the injured worker feel pressure to go back or to feel guilty or bad that they’re not back as quick as the insurance adjuster would like to see them back so that they can close out their claim, so to speak.

So pressure to go back doesn’t really help anyone. There are already incentives built into the workers compensation system to get you back to work in due time, but no one really should be pressuring you unreasonably to get back to work because my experience is most people don’t enjoy being out on workers comp. They’re only making a fraction of what they’re used to, and not working every day has its own toll that it can take. So it doesn’t need to be exacerbated by some insurance adjuster making comments or remarks to press you to go back. And if that’s the case, you may want to consider why you’re talking to the insurance adjuster at all. And unrepresented, it should be your lawyer talking with them about your case—someone who has your interest at heart, as opposed to the insurance adjuster, who is an employee of the insurance company and has their interest certainly at the forefront of her consideration.