If you injured your shoulder at work in New York, there is a good chance you are owed a permanency award — and a good chance nobody has explained how the number is arrived at. It is not set by your diagnosis, it is not set by the operation you had, and it is not set by how much pain you are in. It comes from a set of measurements taken on one day, in one examination room, with a goniometer.
Understanding that is most of what protects the value of a shoulder claim.
Your shoulder is paid as your arm
New York’s statutory schedule does not list a shoulder. Shoulder impairment is scheduled as loss of use of the arm, and the arm carries 312 weeks of benefits at total loss. Your award is a percentage of those 312 weeks, multiplied by your weekly compensation rate.
This catches people out in both directions. Some assume a shoulder is not covered at all because they cannot find it on the list. Others assume “loss of use of the arm” must mean something catastrophic, when in practice a moderate restriction in a shoulder produces a substantial percentage of a 312-week member.
The general mechanics of how these awards are calculated, what is deducted, and how they interact with a settlement are covered on our Schedule Loss of Use page. This page is about what is specific to shoulders.
The award comes from range of motion, not from the diagnosis
Under the Board’s 2018 Impairment Guidelines, a shoulder evaluation measures flexion and abduction — raising the arm forward and out to the side — along with external and internal rotation. Normal flexion is 180 degrees. Those measured deficits are then grouped into bands, running from a mild deficit through moderate and marked, with ankylosis — a shoulder that no longer moves — valued at 80 percent loss of use of the arm.
One important qualifier: 180 degrees is the starting point only when your other shoulder cannot be used for comparison. Normally the doctor measures your uninjured shoulder first and uses that as the baseline, which can change the percentage. See how your other arm can become the measuring stick.
There is also a provision specific to shoulders: where the deficits in both flexion and abduction are moderate or higher and fall within 10 degrees of each other, an additional percentage can be added.
What this structure means in practice is that two workers with the identical injury, the identical surgery and the identical surgeon can receive materially different awards, because their measurements came out differently on the day they were examined.
If you had rotator cuff surgery, read this part carefully
The 2018 Guidelines removed the special consideration that used to exist for rotator cuff tears. There is no longer a value attached to having had the tear or the repair as such.
That is a meaningful change and it cuts both ways. A worker who had a significant repair but recovered excellent motion may receive less than they expect. A worker whose repair left them stiff may receive more than they expect. Either way, the operative report is not what produces the number — the range of motion at maximum medical improvement is.
So if someone has told you that your award is essentially fixed because of the procedure you had, that has not been the position since 2018.
If you were out of work a long time: the protracted healing period
A schedule award is a fixed number of weeks, and the payments you already received for the same injury are credited against it. For someone who was out of work for a long stretch, that arithmetic can leave very little at the end — which is the point at which people conclude the award was not worth anything.
The protracted healing period is the provision that answers this, and it is routinely overlooked.
New York sets a normal healing period for each scheduled member. For the arm — which is how a shoulder is valued — it is 32 weeks. Where a worker’s temporary total disability ran longer than that, the excess weeks are added to the number of weeks the schedule award runs for. A shoulder that kept someone out at total disability for a year rather than eight months does not simply disappear into the credit; the additional period is meant to be recognized.
Two things are worth knowing. It applies to periods of temporary total disability, not temporary partial — so how your periods were classified along the way genuinely matters to the final figure. And it depends entirely on what the periods in your file actually say, which is another reason the record matters more than anyone tells you at the time.
Four things that cost shoulder claimants money
1. A C-4.3 that is not properly completed
Permanency runs on Form C-4.3, the Doctor’s Report of MMI/Permanent Impairment, and on its attachment recording the actual range-of-motion measurements. A C-4.3 that arrives without the measurements filled in, without a maximum medical improvement date, or without addressing every direction of movement is not a small administrative problem. It is the document your award is built from.
Treating physicians are busy and these forms are detailed. An incomplete one delays the case at best, and at worst leaves the carrier’s version of your shoulder as the only properly documented opinion in the file.
2. The IME’s measurements
The insurance carrier will send you to its own examiner, and that examiner will take their own measurements. It is common for those numbers to differ from your treating doctor’s, and the difference between a moderate and a marked deficit is real money on a 312-week member.
Most injured workers do not realize those two opinions can be disputed, or that the examination is brief, performed by someone who has never treated them, and produces a report written for the party paying for it. Our page on independent medical examinations covers what that appointment is and what to expect.
3. Consequential injuries nobody claimed
Shoulders rarely fail in isolation, and a consequential injury to the other side is the pattern that comes up most. Months of using the other arm for everything can produce a genuine injury on that side, and that other shoulder is a separate scheduled member with its own potential award. The same logic applies to a neck that has been compensating, though the neck is not a scheduled body part and is handled differently.
These consequential injuries are frequently never raised, because the worker assumes the claim is only about the part they hurt in the accident.
4. Going back to work and assuming that ends it
A schedule loss of use award is not wage replacement. It is payable whether or not you returned to work, and whether or not you lost a single day’s pay.
People close their own claims by going back, feeling reasonably functional, and concluding there is nothing left to pursue. If your shoulder does not move the way it did before the accident, there may be an award outstanding regardless of how your working life looks now.
Common shoulder injuries in New York workers’ compensation claims
- Rotator cuff tears, partial and full thickness
- Labral and SLAP tears
- Impingement and bursitis
- AC joint separations
- Dislocations and recurrent instability
- Adhesive capsulitis, or frozen shoulder, often following a period of immobilization
- Fractures of the humerus, clavicle or scapula
These arise across the trades and industries we see on Staten Island and in Brooklyn — overhead work in construction, repetitive lifting in warehousing and delivery, patient handling in healthcare, and falls in every setting.
Frequently asked questions
Is a shoulder injury a schedule loss of use in New York?
Yes. The shoulder is evaluated as loss of use of the arm, which carries 312 weeks at total loss. Your award is a percentage of that, based on measured range of motion at maximum medical improvement.
Does having had rotator cuff surgery set my percentage?
No. The 2018 Impairment Guidelines removed the special consideration for rotator cuff tears. The award is driven by your range of motion after you reach maximum medical improvement, not by the procedure itself.
Can I get an award if I went back to my job?
Yes. A schedule loss of use award compensates permanent loss of use of the body member. It does not depend on lost wages and is payable whether or not you returned to work.
What if the carrier’s doctor measured my shoulder differently than my own?
That is common, and the difference can be disputed. Where the treating physician and the independent medical examiner disagree on the degree of loss, the issue is resolved before a Workers’ Compensation Law Judge rather than by accepting whichever figure arrived first.
I hurt my other shoulder from overusing it. Is that part of the claim?
It may be. An injury that develops as a consequence of the original work injury can be added to the claim, and the other shoulder is a separate scheduled member. It has to be raised and supported medically — it will not be picked up automatically.
I was out of work for a year. Will there be anything left of my award?
Possibly more than you think. Payments already made are credited against a schedule award, but New York’s protracted healing period provision sets a normal healing period of 32 weeks for the arm, and weeks of temporary total disability beyond that are added to the award period. It applies to total disability rather than partial, so the way your periods were classified affects the outcome.
When can my shoulder award actually be made?
Not until you reach maximum medical improvement and a doctor files a C-4.3 saying so. Pushing for a permanency finding before your shoulder has stabilized risks locking in a measurement that does not reflect where you end up.
Talk to a New York workers’ compensation attorney
If you have a shoulder injury from work and nobody has explained what your award should be, or the carrier’s examiner has produced a percentage that does not match how your shoulder actually moves, it is worth having the file looked at before anything is finalized.
The Law Offices of Frank J. Dito, Jr. represents injured workers throughout Staten Island, Brooklyn and New York. Call 718.701.2776 (toll-free: 800.310.5520) or contact us for a free consultation. Consultations are free. If we don’t recover money for you, we don’t get paid.
Related: knee injuries and schedule loss of use, and how schedule loss of use awards are calculated.
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