What is Disability, Really?

It is an issue we struggle with, and a difficult one to solve. Much of the activity in workers’ comp is centered around the concept of disability; what it is and how much it is worth for the individual who has been assigned with that designation. We even grade disability, giving it a numerical value with which we can then produce other mathematical calculations related to the previously mentioned value of its existence. But here is the thing: Disability is a man-made legal construct, a creature of regulatory definition. It doesn’t actually exist outside of our creative imaginations. There are certainly people who by those definitions are fully disabled, but our use of the term is far too broad. Our challenge is that the concept of disability has been forever and inexorably tied to the reality of impairment.