6200-6208

LABOR CODE
SECTION 6200-6208




6200.  Every public agency, its insurance carrier, and the State
Department of Rehabilitation shall jointly formulate procedures for
the selection and orderly referral of injured full-time public
employees who may be benefited by rehabilitation services and
retrained for other positions in public service. The State Department
of Rehabilitation shall cooperate in both designing and monitoring
results of rehabilitation programs for the disabled employees. The
primary purpose of this division is to encourage public agencies to
reemploy their injured employees in suitable and gainful employment.



6201.  The employer or insurance carrier shall notify the injured
employee of the availability of rehabilitation services in those
cases where there is continuing disability of 28 days and beyond.
Notification shall be made at the time the employee is paid
retroactively for the first day of disability (in cases of 28 days of
continuing disability or hospitalization) which has previously been
uncompensated. A copy of said notification shall be forwarded to the
State Department of Rehabilitation.



6202.  The initiation of a rehabilitation plan shall be the joint
responsibility of the injured employee, and the employer or the
insurance carrier.


6203.  If a rehabilitation plan requires an injured employee to
attend an educational or medical facility away from his home, the
injured employee shall be paid a reasonable and necessary subsistence
allowance in addition to temporary disability indemnity. The
subsistence allowance shall be regarded neither as indemnity nor as
replacement for lost earnings, but rather as an amount reasonable and
necessary to sustain the employee. The determination of need in a
particular case shall be established as part of the rehabilitation
plan.


6204.  An injured employee agreeing to a rehabilitation plan shall
cooperate in carrying it out. On his unreasonable refusal to comply
with the provisions of the rehabilitation plan, the injured employee'
s rights to further subsistence shall be suspended until compliance
is obtained, except that the payment of temporary or permanent
disability indemnity, which would be payable regardless of the
rehabilitation plan, shall not be suspended.



6205.  The injured employee may agree with his employer or insurance
carrier upon a rehabilitation plan without submission of such plan
for approval to the State Department of Rehabilitation. Provision of
service under such plans shall be at no cost to the State General
Fund.


6206.  The injured employee shall receive such medical and
vocational rehabilitative services as may be reasonably necessary to
restore him to suitable employment.



6207.  The injured employee's rehabilitation benefit is an
additional benefit and shall not be converted to or replace any
workmen's compensation benefit available to him.



6208.  The initiation and acceptance of a rehabilitation program
shall be voluntary and not compulsory upon the employer, the
insurance carrier, or the injured employee.