Short term incapacity refers to 'cases in which the injured Reserve Force member has intermittent periods of incapacity, but is able to continue Reserve service, i.e. where the incapacity is not likely to be ongoing or continuous, preventing further Reserve service'.
The objective in short term incapacity cases is to ensure, wherever possible, that compensation paid reflects the Reserve earnings lost during the particular week. Adopting the methodology described above for long-term cases (discussed above) would not necessarily so reflect lost earnings in individual short-term cases.
For these reasons, the following methodology should be applied to short term incapacity cases for Reservists:
- Obtain details of the parades the client would have been expected to attend during the period of incapacity.
- Obtain details of client's rate of pay per parade relevant to the period of incapacity.
This information should be obtained through DVA SAM via DocTracker.
From this information, the actual lost Reserve earnings can be calculated.