Vocational Rehabilitation
Louisiana workers’ compensation vocational rehabilitation benefits
The basic right: An employee with a covered work injury is entitled to prompt vocational rehabilitation services when the injury prevents the employee from earning wages equal to their pre-injury wages. The purpose is to help the worker return to suitable employment as soon as possible, with the minimum necessary retraining. Vocational services must be provided by a licensed professional vocational rehabilitation counselor. La. R.S. 23:1226(A)–(B).
This is a right to appropriate services, not an automatic right to a particular course, college degree, job, or additional cash payment. The appropriate services depend on the worker’s restrictions, skills, and employment prospects.
1. What services can rehabilitation include?
The statute requires selection of the first appropriate option in this order:
- Return to the same position.
- Return to a modified position.
- Return to a related occupation suited to the worker’s education and marketable skills.
- On-the-job training.
- Short-term retraining of less than 26 weeks.
- Long-term retraining of more than 26 weeks but no more than one year.
- Self-employment.
When possible, work in the worker’s local job pool must be considered and selected before work in a statewide job pool. The list is a hierarchy: the employer cannot simply skip a suitable earlier option, but the worker is not entitled to retraining if a suitable return-to-work option is available sooner. La. R.S. 23:1226(B)(1)–(2); Banks v. Industrial Roofing & Sheet Metal Works, Inc., 696 So. 2d 551 (La. 1997).
In practice, services may involve assessing the worker’s abilities and transferable skills, identifying work consistent with medical restrictions, assisting with job placement, or arranging appropriate training. A list of job titles alone does not necessarily establish that the worker can do those jobs or that they are genuinely available. Banks, 696 So. 2d 551.
2. Who selects and pays for the vocational counselor?
The employer is responsible for selecting a licensed professional vocational rehabilitation counselor to evaluate and assist with placement or training. Services can be initiated by an insurer or self-insured employer, by the Office of Workers’ Compensation requiring designation of a provider, or by the employee requesting services through the Office. The employee does not have an unrestricted statutory right to appoint the employer-funded counselor, but can challenge a refusal to provide services or a dispute about the counselor’s work. La. R.S. 23:1226(B)(3)(a), (C)(1).
3. When is formal retraining available, and who pays related expenses?
If retraining is necessary and desirable to restore the employee to suitable gainful employment, the employee is entitled to a reasonable and proper program of up to 26 weeks. A workers’ compensation judge can extend it for up to 26 additional weeks if necessary and proper; the employer or insurer may voluntarily continue training beyond that limit.
An injured employee must request and begin retraining within two years after termination of temporary total disability as determined by the treating physician. If the program requires the worker to live at or near a training facility away from their customary residence, the employer or insurer bears reasonable board, lodging, or travel costs. Training must take place at facilities within Louisiana when available. These provisions concern the formal retraining program; they should not be confused with a deadline to request all vocational services. La. R.S. 23:1226(E).
4. How does vocational rehabilitation affect weekly wage benefits?
Rehabilitation services and wage-replacement benefits are related but distinct. Eligibility for vocational services turns on inability to earn the same wages as before the injury. Supplemental earnings benefits, or SEBs, generally turn on whether the work injury prevents the employee from earning at least 90% of pre-injury wages. The two tests should not be treated as interchangeable. La. R.S. 23:1226(A); La. R.S. 23:1221(3)(a).
- Temporary total disability (TTD): Section 23:1226(F) includes periods reasonably required for training in the use of artificial members and appliances, and periods of education or training under an approved retraining program, within TTD benefits. That provision does not mean every worker receiving ordinary job-search assistance automatically qualifies for TTD; the statutory TTD requirements still matter. La. R.S. 23:1226(F); La. R.S. 23:1221(1).
- Supplemental earnings benefits: If the employee establishes an injury-related inability to earn 90% of pre-injury wages, SEBs are generally two-thirds of the difference between pre-injury average monthly wages and monthly wages earned or the amount the employee is able to earn, subject to the statute’s limits. A proven post-injury earning capacity can therefore reduce SEBs even if the worker has not actually obtained the job. La. R.S. 23:1221(3)(a)–(c); Banks, 696 So. 2d 551.
- Permanent total disability: Before adjudicating permanent total disability, the judge must consider whether appropriate education or training presents a reasonable probability of suitable gainful employment and is in the employee’s best interest. Permanent total disability cannot be adjudicated while the employee is employed under an on-the-job training or retraining program covered by La. R.S. 23:1226(G). La. R.S. 23:1226(D), (G).
5. Can an insurer reduce SEBs based on jobs identified by its counselor?
Not merely because a counselor names jobs or a physician approves a generic description. When the employer seeks to establish earning capacity through available work, the Louisiana Supreme Court’s Banks decision requires competent evidence of, at minimum:
- A suitable job within the worker’s physical abilities and the worker’s or employer’s community or reasonable geographic region;
- Wages someone with the worker’s experience and training could be expected to earn; and
- An actual opening when the worker was notified of it.
Suitability includes the worker’s age, experience, and education, not just physical restrictions. Actual placement is not required, but speculative wages, or openings that cannot be shown to have existed at the relevant time, are insufficient. Banks, 696 So. 2d 551; La. R.S. 23:1221(3)(c).
A recent Fourth Circuit example is Shubert v. City of New Orleans, No. 2024-CA-0686 (La. App. 4 Cir. Mar. 28, 2025). The court affirmed restoration of SEBs where the employer had not adequately established that identified openings were actually available when communicated to the worker, or that prospective employers would provide the accommodations on which the physician’s approvals depended. The decision illustrates why job availability and necessary accommodations should be verified rather than assumed.
6. Must the worker cooperate? What if the worker refuses?
The worker should take legitimate rehabilitation efforts seriously. Under the current statute, upon an employee’s refusal, the employer or payor may reduce weekly compensation, including supplemental earnings benefits, by 50% for each week of the refusal, following the applicable benefit-modification procedures. A refusal does not itself prove that the employee can earn pre-injury wages, and the statute describes a 50% reduction during the refusal, not automatic permanent termination of all benefits. In Banks, the Supreme Court upheld a 50% reduction for weeks in which the worker refused rehabilitation services that he was seeking to obtain. La. R.S. 23:1226(B)(3)(c); Banks, 696 So. 2d 551.
If there is a genuine reason an activity is inappropriate, such as a conflict with documented medical restrictions, the safer course is to identify the objection promptly and document it, rather than simply cease participating. La. R.S. 23:1201.1(K)(8).
7. What can the worker do if services are denied or inadequate?
The employee may file a claim with the Office of Workers’ Compensation to review the need for vocational services or the quality of the services provided. Section 23:1226 provides an expedited summary proceeding: the judge must set a hearing date within three days of receiving the motion, and the hearing is held within the statute’s specified notice window. Mediation and a pretrial conference are not prerequisites to that vocational-services hearing. There is also an expedited procedure concerning a reduction for alleged failure to cooperate; the judge can order the reduction lifted and arrearages paid if the employee shows good cause for the refusal. La. R.S. 23:1226(B)(3)(a); La. R.S. 23:1201.1(K)(8).
For a dispute over a notice modifying or reducing compensation, La. R.S. 23:1201.1 also sets out notice, disagreement, and disputed-claim procedures. The applicable steps should be checked against the particular notice and claim dates, rather than assuming that an informal objection alone preserves every issue. La. R.S. 23:1201.1.
Recent change: Effective August 1, 2026, Act 184 of the 2026 Regular Session repealed former La. R.S. 23:1226(C)(2). Older opinions and summaries may describe a procedure under that former paragraph. The current routes for initiating services are in La. R.S. 23:1226(C)(1), and the provisions for challenging a refusal or the counselor’s work are in La. R.S. 23:1226(B)(3)(a).
Bottom line: The central question is whether the program meaningfully moves this particular injured worker toward suitable, realistically available employment within their capabilities, while respecting the statute’s order of options. The worker can contest inadequate services or an unsupported wage reduction, but should not refuse proposed services without promptly addressing and documenting the reason.