10.1 The Claiming Process

Clients may request payment of compensation for permanent impairment (PI) at any time. Generally a PI claim will be generated by a Needs Assessment following acceptance of liability. A claim may also be initiated by requesting PI in MyAccount.

There is no specific legislative requirement under s24 or s27 for a client to request PI compensation in writing or via a MRCC approved claim form. under s25, interim compensation can only be paid following the written request from a client.

It should be noted that a simple written or oral request will suffice should the claim for permanent impairment happen sometime after the initial liability decision is made. There is also provision on the latest version of the SRCA Claim form (D2020) to request PI when lodging a claim for compensation.

At all times, delegates should ensure that they are fully documenting these requests on the system, especially where the PI claim is made orally. 

For further information refer to Businessline – 24-08-2018 – Oral claims for compensation under MRCA (TRIM 18761055E) (Although the businessline refers to MRCA only, verbal claims for benefits under the DRCA can also be accepted), CLIK-DRCA Liability Handbook Chapter 6.3.1, and CLIK-MCRL-Rehabilitation and Compensation Claim Registration Process Chapter 3.

Substantial Compliance for subsumed conditions

Where a client has conditions already accepted, requests a PI assessment, and then as part of the assessment it is discovered that the original condition does not exist and a subsequent condition has subsumed it, the originally submitted form plus the client’s subsequent written confirmation/evidence of the new condition entails substantial compliance for the purposes of s54 of the DRCA.

The delegate can then consider the new condition and subsequent PI assessment without making the client go through the formal claiming process again for the new condition.