What is impairment?
Impairment under Kansas law is a determination by a health care provider of the damage to a person’s body sustained as a result of accidental injury. The determination of impairment in Kansas is required to be based upon the 4th Edition of the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment. The aim is to have all persons with identical injuries receive the identical impairment percentage. The goal of the AMA Guides is to have a person’s impairment determined to be the same or very close to the same regardless of which physician does the evaluating. The Guides provide standard criteria for determining impairment. In practice, the Guides are interpreted by different health care providers and markedly different results are reached just as different religious leaders derive different interpretations from the Bible or Old Testament. “Impairment” per the Guides is a condition that interferes with an individual’s “activities of daily living”. Activities include, but are not limited to,
