The Modified Duty Assignment SOP

Purpose

This procedure guarantees that a worker on medical restrictions is only ever given work that fits every one of them, every day, no matter who is dispatching. Without it, modified duty is decided each morning by whoever is busiest, the restriction lives in one person's head, and the re-injury happens the day that person is out. It also produces the record that shows the carrier, OSHA or an attorney what was assigned and why.

Scope

Covers: any worker returning with written restrictions, whether from a work injury, an off-the-job injury, an illness or a pregnancy-related limit, from the day the note arrives to the day the worker is released to full duty or the restrictions become permanent.

Does not cover: building the overall return plan with the claim adjuster and the legal tracks around it (see related: Returning to Work After an Injury: The Modified Duty Plan); accommodating a permanent restriction under the ADA, which starts where step 8 ends; reporting the original injury (the shop's injury-reporting SOP); and deciding whether a worker is fit for duty when there is no note at all (see related: Fit for Duty: When and How to Ask).

Roles and responsibilities

Procedure

Step 1: Receive the note and log it within one working day

The office manager date-stamps the provider's note on arrival, files the original in a confidential medical file kept separate from the personnel file (required for ADA-covered employers under 29 CFR 1630.14, and good practice at any size), and opens a restriction card for the worker. Acceptance: the note is dated, signed by the provider, names a re-evaluation date, and states its restrictions in functional terms. What wrong looks like: "light duty," "as tolerated," or no end date. Stop rule: do not assign anything on a vague note; send the provider the role's physical demands description the same day with a request for functional limits, and the worker stays on whatever status the previous note set until the answer comes back. Hazard: none physical at this step, it is paperwork at a desk; the exposure is privacy, so the diagnosis is not copied onto the card.

Step 2: Convert every restriction into a measurable limit

For each line of the note, write one row on the restriction card with a number or a yes or no: maximum lift and carry in pounds (and which arm, if one-sided), maximum hours per day, positions excluded (overhead reach, kneeling, crawling, ladder, roof), driving allowed or not, and any medication effect the provider has noted. Acceptance: every row on the card is a number or a yes or no, and the card's row count equals the note's restriction count. What wrong looks like: a row reading "limited bending" with no frequency, or a note restriction that has no row. Stop rule: any restriction that cannot be made measurable goes back to the provider; until clarified, treat it at its strictest reading (limited bending means no bending tasks). Hazard: none physical; the risk is a row dropped in transcription, so the service manager re-counts rows against the note before signing the card.

Step 3: Match tasks against every limit at once

From the role's physical demands description and the shop's list of standing light tasks, the service manager scores each candidate task against each card row. A task passes only if it clears every row; one failed row fails the task. Where a demand is unknown (the heaviest box on a parts run, whether a filter route includes ceiling grilles), it is measured, by weighing the box or checking the job notes, or the task is excluded. Acceptance: a matched list with enough passing tasks to fill the worker's scheduled hours for one week, each with its heaviest demand written beside it. What wrong looks like: a task passed on a guess, or a list that fills three days of a five-day week. Stop rule: if the list cannot fill the hours, the service manager tells the owner and the adjuster rather than padding it with tasks that brush the limits; a shorter offer is legitimate, a stretched one is how this step fails. Hazard: this is the step where the injury is decided. A task over the limit, approved here, is executed in good faith by everyone downstream.

Step 4: Issue the written offer and record the answer

The service manager drafts the offer from the card and the matched list: restrictions with the note's date, duties, hours, pay, supervisor, start date, the stop line ("if a task exceeds a restriction, stop and call the service manager, refusing it is expected"), and the review day. The owner approves pay terms. Acceptance: the worker signs accept or decline within two working days, a copy goes to the worker, and the adjuster is told the answer the same day if there is a comp claim. What wrong looks like: pressure to accept, or an offer that omits the stop line. Stop rule: a decline is recorded and passed to the adjuster without argument; its effect on benefits is the adjuster's determination under state law, never the shop's to state. Hazard: none physical; this is a conversation at a desk.

Step 5: Post the card and brief the supervisor and dispatcher

Before the first assigned shift, post the restriction rows and the matched task list where the dispatcher works (board, dispatch notes, or the worker's profile), without the diagnosis, and walk the supervisor and dispatcher through them. Acceptance: each of them reads the limits back correctly, including the end date and the stop line. What wrong looks like: a dispatcher who can say "he's on light duty" but not the pound limit. Stop rule: if the dispatcher or supervisor cannot be briefed before the shift, the worker reports to the service manager directly that day and takes assignments only from them. Hazard: the field exposure starts here; the dispatcher is the person most likely to send the worker into a lift, so the briefing is what stands between the card and the van.

Step 6: Execute daily, with the worker holding the stop

The worker does only listed tasks. Any task that turns out heavier, higher or longer than its listed demand (a box heavier than marked, a return grille in the ceiling instead of the wall) is stopped on the spot and reported to the service manager the same day. Nobody test-lifts an unknown weight to see if it is under the limit: it gets weighed, labeled, or handed to someone else. Acceptance: zero tasks performed over a limit, and every stopped task reported the same day. What wrong looks like: "I did it anyway, it was only one." Stop rule: a stopped task comes off the matched list until the service manager re-scores it under step 3. Hazard: the lift, the reach or the climb itself; where a listed task involves driving, the worker does not drive a company vehicle if the card shows a medication effect on alertness.

Step 7: Review weekly and on every provider visit

Every Friday the service manager meets the worker for fifteen minutes: tasks done, hours worked, any stopped task, any rise in pain or new symptom. The office manager adds the week's restricted days to the OSHA 300 log tally where the shop keeps one (restricted days count under 29 CFR 1904.7(b)(4), capped at 180). Acceptance: a dated review entry every week, and a re-run of steps 2 to 5 within one working day of any new note. What wrong looks like: a review skipped two weeks running, or symptoms getting worse while tasks stay the same. Stop rule: a reported rise in symptoms means the worker is sent back to the provider before the next scheduled visit, and the most demanding listed task is pulled until then. Hazard: none physical at the review; the review exists to catch the cumulative hazard the daily stop misses.

Step 8: Close at full release or hand off at permanent restrictions

On a full-duty release, the worker returns to the normal schedule with a one-week taper: heavy lifts paired and no more than two hard days, because tissue tolerance lags the paperwork release. On a note stating maximum medical improvement with permanent restrictions, the owner hands the case to the accommodation process (the ADA interactive process for employers with 15 or more employees, or a state equivalent that reaches smaller shops), with the attorney or adjuster as needed. Acceptance: the card is closed with the release date, or the handoff is documented with the date and the person who took it. What wrong looks like: the worker drifts back to full installs on day one, or permanent restrictions are treated as a temporary card with no end. Stop rule: no termination or permanent reassignment is decided inside this SOP. Hazard: returning to the full workload is the resume step, and a flare in the taper week sends the worker back to step 7 rather than pushing through.

The record this produces

• Restriction card: note date, each limit row, re-evaluation date, end date. Read by the dispatcher daily and by the adjuster on request.
• Matched task list: each task with its heaviest demand and the date it was scored. Read later by anyone reconstructing why a task was assigned.
• Signed offer with accept or decline and the date the adjuster was told.
• Stopped-task log and weekly review entries, read by the carrier's nurse case manager and, if the claim is disputed, by attorneys.
• 300 log tally of restricted days, where kept.
• Confidential medical file, separate from personnel records, readable only by the office manager and owner.

Worked pass

An HVAC tech returns after a right-shoulder strain.

• Step 1: note received Monday, logged Monday. Dated, signed, functional, re-evaluation in 14 days. Pass.
• Step 2: four restrictions, four rows: no lift over 15 lb with the right arm; no overhead reach; no ladder; 8 hours a day. Row count 4 against note count 4. Pass.
• Step 3: seven candidates scored. Thermostat swaps: heaviest demand under 2 lb, chest height. Pass. Ground-level diagnosis: pass. Filter-change route: listed as "chest-height wall returns." Pass on the job notes. Supply-house parts run: the heaviest item on the standing order was unknown, so the office weighed it, a 24 lb case of condensate pumps. Fails the 15 lb row. The run was re-scoped to exclude the case, which another tech picks up. Remaining tasks fill 40 of 40 scheduled hours. Pass after correction.
• Step 4: offer signed accept on Tuesday; adjuster told Tuesday. Pass.
• Step 5: dispatcher read back "15 pounds right arm, nothing overhead, no ladder, 8 hours, through the 28th, stop line." Pass.
• Step 6: Wednesday, the filter route's third house has a ceiling return grille the job notes missed. Fails: overhead reach. The tech stopped, left it, called the service manager at 11:40. The filter route came off the list; step 3 re-scored it to "wall returns verified in job notes," which removed two of eleven stops.
• Step 7: Friday review logged. No new symptoms, one stopped task, 5 restricted days added to the tally.
• Step 8: on day 14 the provider releases him to full duty. Taper week runs with paired lifts on two install assists; card closed with the release date.

Both failures were unknown demands. Step 3's measure-don't-guess rule caught one; the other got through on wrong job notes, which is what step 6's stop line is for.

References

• OSHA recordkeeping, 29 CFR 1904.7(b)(4) on restricted work and job transfer
• U.S. EEOC, ADA Title I and medical-record confidentiality at 29 CFR 1630.14
• See related: Returning to Work After an Injury: The Modified Duty Plan
• See related: Writing a Physical Demands Description for Each Role
• See related: Fit for Duty: When and How to Ask