Return to work in a NSW workers compensation claim

Return to work

Suitable duties, injury management plans, and what an employer is and is not required to do — including what happens when the insurer or your employer sees your capacity differently from the way you do.

General information, not legal advice. This page sets out how the law generally applies. It does not take account of your circumstances, and you should get advice about your own situation before acting on it. The official sources this page is written from are listed on it; where they differ from anything here, they are the authority.

Last updated: 23 September 2026

Going back to work is not what happens after a workers compensation claim finishes. It is part of the claim. Almost everything else on a claim — your weekly payments, the treatment the insurer funds, and how long the claim stays open — moves when your certified capacity moves, which is why returning to work is dealt with inside the New South Wales workers compensation scheme rather than alongside it.

This page sets out what your employer is obliged to do, what the certificate of capacity actually decides, what you are expected to do in return, and where a disagreement about any of it is resolved. It is written for someone who has been offered duties that do not feel right, or told they are fit for more than they can manage.

What returning to work means in this scheme

The scheme is built on the position that staying connected to work is part of recovery. icare, which administers workers insurance in New South Wales, publishes that the longer you are away from work, the likelihood of you ever returning to work declines, and that working helps you stay active which is an important part of your treatment and rehabilitation.

That is the scheme’s starting point, and it is worth knowing because it shapes how an insurer and an employer will approach your claim. It is not a direction to you, and it is not a reason to go back before your doctor says you can. What you are able to do is a medical question, and the rest of the scheme is supposed to follow the answer rather than lead it.

In practice a return to work is usually gradual: reduced hours, changed duties, or the same job with some parts of it taken out. None of that is a finding that you have recovered, and none of it closes the rest of the claim.

Returning to some work does not by itself end weekly payments, medical expenses or an assessment of permanent impairment. Those are separate entitlements and each is decided on its own terms.

What your employer has to do

icare publishes it plainly: your employer is obligated by law to provide suitable work that matches your capacity and supports your recovery. The obligation is not a favour and it is not discretionary goodwill. Where you cannot do your usual job, icare says you should ask your doctor and employer about suitable alternative duties.

The obligations about injury management and returning to work sit in the Workplace Injury Management and Workers Compensation Act 1998 (NSW), alongside the Workers Compensation Act 1987 (NSW), which deals with what is payable. Both are on the NSW legislation register, and both have been amended recently.

Alongside the employer there is usually a claims manager. icare publishes that if you require time off work a claim manager may be assigned to coordinate all aspects of the claim, acting as your central point of contact and maintaining open communication with your employer and treating practitioner. That person is employed on the insurer’s side of the claim. They are often genuinely helpful, and they are still not your adviser.

Suitable work that matches the capacity your doctor has certified, rather than whatever happens to be left over.
A plan for your injury management and your return to work, which you should be given a copy of.
Communication between your employer, the insurer and your treating practitioner, coordinated through the claim.
Decisions given to you in writing, so that you can see what has been decided and why.

Suitable is measured against your certified capacity. It does not mean any duty you would prefer, and it does not mean any duty that happens to be vacant. If what you have been offered does not match the certificate, that mismatch is the thing to raise, and to raise in writing.

The certificate of capacity decides what you can be asked to do

icare publishes that your nominated treating doctor provides a certificate of capacity that determines if you are able to work, and that the certificate is usually completed by your nominated treating doctor and is the main channel of communication between your doctor, your employer, and your employer’s claims service provider.

The doctor records your capacity for any work — in icare’s words, how much and what type of duties you can perform — along with an expected return to work date. That single document is what an employer builds suitable duties from and what an insurer measures your weekly payments against. A restriction that was not written down does not exist as far as the claim is concerned.

icare also publishes that you must have a valid NSW workers compensation certificate of capacity to ensure you continue receiving any weekly payments and treatment services that you’re entitled to. Letting one lapse is one of the most common and most avoidable ways for payments to stop.

Read the certificate before it is sent, while you are still in the room. If it says you can lift, stand, drive or sit for longer than you can, say so then. There is more in the guide to certificates of capacity.

What you are expected to do

The obligations in this part of the scheme run both ways. You are expected to keep a current certificate, to take part in your injury management and return to work, and to be straightforward about what you are doing. icare publishes that when you sign a certificate you confirm consent to communication about your claim and disclose any employment since the last certificate.

If suitable duties are making your injury worse, the answer is to tell your treating doctor and to put it to your employer and the insurer in writing, rather than to stop attending and leave the record silent. What is written down at the time tends to decide these questions later, in the same way the early records decide a liability dispute.

Keep the plan, the duty lists, the rosters, the emails and every certificate together. If you are asked to do something outside the certificate, note the date, who asked and what was said.

When the insurer decides you have more capacity than you have

An insurer can make a work capacity decision — a decision about your current capacity for work and what you are able to earn — and it is the kind of decision that usually changes what is paid. The Personal Injury Commission, which decides workers compensation disputes in New South Wales, lists among the matters in its expedited pathway that the worker has received notice from the insurer of a work capacity decision and the worker disputes that decision. The Commission also publishes a procedural direction on work capacity disputes, WC5.

A work capacity decision is a decision, not an opinion, and it takes effect unless it is challenged. The Commission publishes that workers who disagree with all or part of an insurer’s decision have the right to request a review by the insurer before lodging an application with the Commission, and that in some cases an internal review is required before a dispute can be lodged at all.

Because these decisions change what is paid, the practical effect usually lands on weekly payments first, and sometimes on medical expenses afterwards.

The decision letter is the document that matters, and it is usually the document a period runs from. Keep it, keep the envelope or the email it arrived in, and read the guide on when a decision goes against you before you reply.

When you and your employer cannot agree about the plan

There is a dedicated route for this. The Commission lists, among the disputes in its expedited assessment pathway, that the worker and the employer cannot agree on an injury management plan and/or aspects of the worker’s return to work, which it calls a workplace injury management dispute. It publishes a procedural direction on those disputes, WC6. Legal Aid NSW publishes the same thing more simply: if you have a dispute about injury management, you may be able to apply to the Personal Injury Commission.

The Commission publishes that these matters are managed by a senior lawyer or member from the Commission, and that a preliminary conference is usually held virtually or by telephone. Where the parties do not reach agreement, the senior lawyer or member may direct that an independent injury management consultant (IMC) or other suitably qualified person conduct a workplace assessment in connection with the dispute — that is, have someone look at the actual job.

A recommendation made in a work injury management dispute can be reviewed, if a party asks the President in writing within the period the Commission publishes. Where the dispute is about weekly payments or medical expenses instead, an interim payment direction may be issued, and either party can apply to the President to revoke one.

A claim has to have been submitted to the insurer first, and in some cases an internal review by the insurer is required before anything can be lodged.
Workers compensation disputes are lodged through the Commission's online Pathway Portal.
A preliminary conference follows, usually virtually or by telephone.
Where the injury management issues are not agreed, a workplace assessment may be directed.
A recommendation is made, and it can be reviewed by the President on a written request made in time.

This is one of the few parts of the scheme where the argument is with the employer rather than only with the insurer. That does not make it an employment case, and it is not decided in a court.

Your job while the claim is running

Worrying about the job is not separate from worrying about the injury, and people rarely say so out loud. There is protection here: icare publishes that an employer cannot dismiss you because of a work-related injury within a period running from when you first became unfit for work. The length of that period is set by the legislation and published by icare and by the State Insurance Regulatory Authority, and it is one of the periods the recent amendments touch. No figure for it is printed here.

The protection is real and it is not unlimited. It is also not the only thing in play: how a dismissal is dealt with as an employment matter is a different body of law, decided somewhere else, and it runs on its own timetable. Those timetables are usually much shorter than anything in a workers compensation claim.

If your job is in question as well as your health, say so early, and say it to both sides of the problem. The worst version of this is finding out later that one of the two doors closed while the other was still open.

If you have been dismissed, stood down, or told your position is going, keep the letter and note the date you received it. Get advice about the employment side quickly, separately from the claim.

Time limits, and why no number appears here

Several different periods run through this part of the scheme: the time to ask an insurer to review a work capacity decision, the time to lodge a dispute with the Commission, the time to ask the President to review a recommendation or revoke an interim payment direction, and the quite separate time limits that apply to a dismissal. They are real, they are short, and they are strict.

Which one applies to you, and when it started running, depends on the document you were given — the work capacity decision, the insurer’s letter, the notice about your weekly payments, or a letter about your employment. That is why no day count is published on this site. Take the period from your own document and from the current Act on the NSW legislation register, and get advice before a date passes rather than after one has.

This part of the scheme is also mid-change. The Commission publishes that the Workers Compensation Legislation Amendment Act 2025 and the Workers Compensation Legislation Amendment (Reform and Modernisation) Act 2026 were assented to in late 2025 and early 2026, that changes commenced on 27 March 2026 and on 1 July 2026, and that further changes are set to commence in October. The amendments deal with injury assessment, claims management, available entitlements and how disputes are decided, and include significant changes to eligibility for primary psychological injuries notified after 1 July 2026. The Commission’s own workers compensation pages currently carry a notice that the information is being updated and may change as the reforms are implemented.

If you think a period may already have run, that is a reason to ask sooner rather than to give up. Whether anything can be done about it turns on facts a web page cannot know.

Help that does not depend on this site

A great many return-to-work problems are settled directly between a worker, a doctor and an employer, and never become a dispute at all. Where one is needed, the Commission publishes that it cannot provide legal advice, although it will assist with the procedural aspects of an application if you are self-represented.

It also points workers to funded and free help. The Commission publishes that a legal representative will usually apply on a worker’s behalf to the Independent Legal Assistance and Review Service, which is administered through the Independent Review Office; it names the Law Society Solicitor Referral Service; and it names LawAccess NSW, a free government telephone service providing legal information, referrals and in some cases advice. Legal Aid NSW publishes that the Independent Review Office is an independent body that deals with complaints by injured workers against insurers. None of those services depends on anyone here.

If you would rather have the documents looked at — the certificate, the plan, the duty list, the decision letter — you can tell us what has happened. A short summary is enough to begin. Please do not send medical records before a conflict check.

If you have not yet reported the injury, or the claim has not started, begin with notifying an injury at work. If the argument has moved beyond capacity and on to fault, see work injury damages.