(A) The administrator of workers' compensation, with the advice and consent of the bureau of workers' compensation board of directors, shall adopt rules:

(1) For the encouragement of reemployment of claimants who have successfully completed prescribed rehabilitation programs by payment from the surplus fund established by section 4123.34 of the Revised Code to employers who employ or re-employ the claimants. The period or periods of payments shall not exceed six months in the aggregate, unless the administrator or the administrator's designee determines that the claimant will be benefited by an extension of payments.

(2) Requiring payment, in the same manner as living maintenance payments are made pursuant to section 4121.63 of the Revised Code, to the claimant who completes a rehabilitation training program and returns to employment, but who suffers a wage loss compared to the wage the claimant was receiving at the time of injury. Payments per week shall be sixty-six and two-thirds per cent of the difference, if any, between the claimant's weekly wage at the time of injury and the weekly wage received while employed, up to a maximum payment per week equal to the statewide average weekly wage. The payments may continue for up to a maximum of two hundred weeks but shall be reduced by the corresponding number of weeks in which the claimant receives payments pursuant to division (B) of section 4123.56 of the Revised Code.

(B) A self-insuring employer shall make the payments described in division (A) of this section directly as part of a claim.

Amended by 131st General Assembly File No. TBD, HB 52, §1, eff. 9/29/2015.

Effective Date: 2007 HB100 09-10-2007