DC Workers’ Compensation: Benefits, Filing, and Appeals

If you are hurt on the job in the District, DC workers’ compensation pays for your medical care and replaces part of your lost wages without requiring you to prove your employer did anything wrong. Benefits run at 66 2/3% of your average weekly wage, with a 2026 maximum of $1,852.07 per week and a minimum of $463.02.¹ The program is run by the Office of Workers’ Compensation (OWC) inside the Department of Employment Services, and the whole thing hinges on two filing deadlines that most workers do not know about until it is too late.

The Two Deadlines That Decide Your Claim

There are two separate filings, and meeting one does not satisfy the other.

The first is 30 days. You must file Form OWC-7, the Employee’s Notice of Accidental Injury or Occupational Disease, with both your employer and the Office of Workers’ Compensation within 30 days of the injury, or within 30 days of learning that a condition is job-related.² For occupational diseases like repetitive stress injuries or chemical exposure, the clock starts when you become aware of the link to your work, not when symptoms first appear.

The second is one year. You must file Form OWC-7A, the Employee’s Claim for Compensation, within one year of the injury or within one year after your last benefit payment, whichever is later.³ Miss this one and you forfeit your right to benefits entirely. Form 7 is a notice; Form 7A is the actual claim. You need both.

How to File

Before you touch the paperwork, write down the date, time, and location of the injury, the names and contact details of any witnesses, your employer’s full legal business name, and the name of their workers’ compensation insurance carrier.

Then file the two forms in sequence. Form OWC-7 is the injury notice: Part 1 goes to OWC, Part 2 to your employer, Part 3 stays with you.² Form OWC-7A is the formal claim, where you identify the type of disability and the benefits you are seeking.³ Both forms are available on the DOES website or in person at the OWC office. Describe the incident in plain, specific language and list every healthcare provider you have seen since. Mistakes in wage history or medical details are the most common reason claims stall.

What Happens After You File

Your employer has its own obligation. Within 10 days of the injury or of learning about a work-related disease, the employer must send the Mayor a report with your name, occupation, and the nature, cause, time, and place of the injury, and must also send you a statement of your rights and obligations by certified mail.⁴

If the insurance carrier accepts the claim, your first benefit payment should arrive within 14 working days.⁵ If the carrier denies it, it files a Notice of Controversion (Form 11) explaining why. Common grounds are insufficient medical evidence, a dispute over whether the injury is work-related, and jurisdictional issues. A denial is not final; you can push back through the dispute process below.

How Much You Will Be Paid

Your benefit starts with your Average Weekly Wage, calculated by dividing total earnings over the 26 consecutive calendar weeks before the injury by 26. Overtime, bonuses, and the value of employer-provided fringe benefits all count. If you worked fewer than 26 weeks for the employer, the calculation estimates what you would have earned over a full 26-week period.⁶

The standard rate is 66 2/3% of that figure.⁷ A worker earning $1,500 per week before the injury would receive $1,000 per week. The 2026 cap is $1,852.07 and the floor is $463.02; these are reset each year based on D.C. insured-employee wages, and the minimum for total disability or death is 25% of the maximum.⁸

Wage payments do not start on day one. The first three days of disability are a waiting period with no wage benefit. If the disability lasts more than 14 days, compensation becomes retroactive and you are paid for those first three days after all.⁸ Medical care, by contrast, is covered from day one.

The Four Types of Disability Benefits

The category you fall into controls both how much you get and how long payments last. All four pay at the same 66 2/3% base rate.⁷

Temporary Total Disability

You cannot work at all while recovering, but you are expected to improve. Payments continue until you return to work or reach maximum medical improvement, meaning your condition has stabilized and further treatment is unlikely to help. No fixed week limit applies, but benefits stop once the disability is no longer total.

Temporary Partial Disability

You go back to work in a reduced capacity and earn less than before. The benefit is 66 2/3% of the difference between your pre-injury average weekly wage and your current earning capacity.

Permanent Partial Disability

A lasting impairment that still allows some work is paid under a statutory schedule assigning a set number of weeks to each body part. A sample:

Arm: 312 weeks
Leg: 288 weeks
Hand: 244 weeks
Foot: 205 weeks
Eye: 160 weeks
Thumb: 75 weeks
Hearing in one ear: 52 weeks
Hearing in both ears: 200 weeks

For injuries on or after April 16, 1999, these scheduled periods are reduced by 25%, rounded up to the nearest whole week.⁷ Serious disfigurement of the face, head, neck, or other normally exposed areas can be compensated up to $7,500.

Any single injury causing temporary or permanent partial disability is capped at 500 weeks of payments. If significant impairment remains after that, you can petition for up to 167 additional weeks, but only if an independent medical examiner finds your whole-body impairment exceeds 20% under the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment.⁸

Permanent Total Disability

Reserved for injuries so severe that no gainful work is possible, these benefits continue as long as the total disability lasts.

Medical Care and Choosing a Doctor

Your employer pays for all reasonable and necessary treatment tied to the injury: surgery, hospital care, prescriptions, diagnostics, physical therapy, prosthetic devices, and even eyeglasses or dental work damaged in the incident.⁹

You get to pick your treating physician. If the injury is severe enough that you cannot make that choice and need emergency care, your employer picks initially.⁹ Switching doctors mid-treatment is not automatic; the Mayor, acting through OWC, has to order a change of physician when necessary or desirable. Separately, if your employer fails to provide adequate treatment after you ask for it, you can obtain care on your own and pick a new doctor at the employer’s expense.

Insurance carriers can require you to attend an independent medical examination with a doctor they select. Refusing without good reason authorizes suspension of your compensation, medical payments, and health insurance until you comply, and the same consequence applies to unreasonably refusing vocational rehabilitation.⁹ The word that matters is “unreasonably.” If you have a legitimate reason, such as an inaccessible examiner’s office, document it and raise it with OWC rather than simply not showing up.

If your injury keeps you from your old job, the employer must provide vocational rehabilitation aimed at returning you to work at wages close to what you earned before. During rehabilitation you may receive an additional maintenance payment of up to $50 per week.⁹

Who Is Not Covered

The D.C. Act covers nearly everyone working for a private employer in the District under a contract of hire or apprenticeship, written or verbal, including part-time workers and minors.¹⁰ It does not cover federal employees (handled under FECA by the U.S. Department of Labor),¹¹ D.C. government employees (separate public-sector program), vessel crew members (federal maritime law), interstate railroad workers (FELA), casual, domestic, and agricultural workers when the work falls outside the employer’s usual business, or staff of individual Members of Congress.¹²

If Your Claim Is Denied

You can hire an attorney at any point in the process.¹³

Informal Conference

The first step is a mediation-style meeting at OWC. A claims examiner works with you and the carrier to see whether the dispute can be resolved without a hearing. Many claims settle here, especially when the problem is missing medical documentation that can be supplied.

Formal Hearing

If the conference does not resolve it, you request a formal hearing before an Administrative Law Judge in the Administrative Hearings Division. Applications must be submitted through the AHD e-File portal, and you need an active OWC claim to register.¹³ The ALJ takes testimony, reviews medical evidence, and issues a written compensation order.

Compensation Review Board

Either side can appeal the ALJ’s decision by filing an Application for Review with the Compensation Review Board at no cost. The CRB does not re-hear evidence; a three-judge panel examines the record and can affirm, reverse, or remand.¹⁴

Death Benefits for Survivors

If a workplace injury or occupational disease causes death, the Act covers reasonable funeral expenses up to $5,000 and pays ongoing wage replacement to dependents, subject to the same weekly maximum as disability benefits.¹⁵ The amounts turn on family composition:

Surviving spouse or domestic partner with no children: 50% of the deceased worker’s average weekly wage, continuing until remarriage or entry into a new domestic partnership. Remarriage triggers a lump sum equal to two years of compensation.
Surviving spouse or domestic partner with children: 50% for the spouse plus 16 2/3% for each child, capped at 66 2/3% total.
Surviving children with no spouse: 50% for one child, plus 16 2/3% for each additional child, capped at 66 2/3%.
Dependent grandchildren, siblings, parents, or grandparents: 20% for each grandchild or sibling and 25% for each parent or grandparent, but only if the total paid to the spouse and children is less than 66 2/3%.

Retaliation Is Illegal

Your employer cannot fire you, demote you, or discriminate against you for filing a claim or testifying in a proceeding. A violation carries a penalty of $100 to $1,000, and you are entitled to reinstatement and back pay for wages lost to the retaliation. The employer bears those penalties alone; no insurance policy can shift them to the carrier.¹⁶ Every private employer in the District is required to carry workers’ compensation insurance, and an employer that fails to secure coverage faces a civil fine of $1,000 to $10,000, with the president, secretary, and treasurer of a corporate employer personally liable for both the fine and any benefits owed.

1
Department of Employment Services. Maximum-Minimum Compensation Rate 2026
2
Department of Employment Services. Employee’s Notice of Accidental Injury or Occupational Disease – Form 7
3
Department of Employment Services. Employee’s Rights and Obligations – District of Columbia Workers’ Compensation Law
4
D.C. Law Library. District of Columbia Code 32-1532 – Employer Reports
5
Department of Employment Services. Office of Workers’ Compensation Brochure
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D.C. Law Library. District of Columbia Code 32-1511 – Determination of Average Weekly Wage
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D.C. Law Library. District of Columbia Code 32-1508 – Compensation for Disability
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D.C. Law Library. District of Columbia Code 32-1505 – Commencement of Compensation; Maximum Compensation
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D.C. Law Library. District of Columbia Code 32-1507 – Medical Services, Supplies, and Insurance
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D.C. Law Library. District of Columbia Code 32-1501 – Definitions
11
U.S. Department of Labor. Federal Employees’ Compensation Program
12
U.S. Department of Labor. District of Columbia Workmen’s Compensation Act – Section 2 Exceptions
13
Department of Employment Services. Workers’ Compensation Legal Process General Information
14
Department of Employment Services. Compensation Review Board
15
D.C. Law Library. District of Columbia Code 32-1509 – Compensation for Death
16
D.C. Law Library. District of Columbia Code 32-1542 – Retaliatory Actions by Employer Prohibited