TL;DR: A schedule award compensates a federal employee for the permanent loss or loss of use of a listed body part, separately from any wage loss. The statute sets a fixed number of weeks per member — 312 for an arm, 288 for a leg, 205 for a foot — and your impairment percentage buys that fraction of the weeks. You must have reached maximum medical improvement first, the rating must be done under the edition of the AMA Guides that OWCP specifies, and the back and spine are not on the schedule at all except through the impairment they cause in an arm or leg.
General information about the FECA process, not legal advice. Citations are to the statute and regulations and were verified in August 2026 — including against the live OWCP forms index, which matters for one point below.
What a Schedule Award Actually Is
Most FECA benefits replace income you have lost. A schedule award does something different: it compensates permanent impairment itself, under 5 U.S.C. § 8107, whether or not you are back at work and earning normally. You can be fully recovered occupationally and still be owed one.
The two are not paid for the same period, though. A schedule award and wage-loss compensation cannot both run concurrently, so timing is part of the conversation with your claims examiner.
The Schedule
Section 8107 pays at 66⅔ percent of monthly pay — the augmented rate of 75% applies where the claimant has an eligible dependent under 5 U.S.C. § 8110 — for a fixed number of weeks per member:
- Arm — 312 weeks
- Leg — 288 weeks
- Hand — 244 weeks
- Foot — 205 weeks
- Eye — 160 weeks
- Thumb — 75 weeks
- First finger — 46 weeks
- Great toe — 38 weeks
- Other toe — 16 weeks
- Hearing, one ear — 52 weeks; both ears — 200 weeks
Two further provisions are easy to miss. Serious disfigurement of the face, head or neck of a character likely to handicap an individual in securing or maintaining employment carries proper and equitable compensation not to exceed $3,500. And permanent loss or loss of use of any other important external or internal organ, as determined by the Secretary, carries compensation not to exceed 312 weeks for each organ so determined.
These are full-loss figures. An award is your impairment percentage applied to them — a 20% permanent impairment of the arm is 20% of 312 weeks, or 62.4 weeks of compensation.
Why the Back Is Not on the List
This is the question we field most, and the answer disappoints a lot of people with genuine, permanent back injuries: the spine is not a scheduled member. Neither is the brain or the heart. The schedule covers specific members, organs and functions, and the cervical, thoracic and lumbar spine are not among them.
There is a route, but it is indirect. Where a spinal condition causes permanent impairment in an arm or a leg — radiculopathy producing lasting loss of function in the extremity — the rating is made on that extremity rather than on the spine. So a lumbar injury with permanent nerve involvement down the leg may support a leg rating even though the back itself supports nothing.
The practical consequence: if your accepted condition is spinal, the impairment evaluation needs to document extremity findings specifically. A report that describes your back thoroughly and your leg in passing will not produce an award, however accurate it is.
Two Preconditions People Get Wrong
Maximum medical improvement first
Impairment can only be rated once you have reached maximum medical improvement — the point at which further recovery is not expected. The physician’s report must affirm that MMI has been reached and cite the date. Requesting a rating while you are still actively improving is the most common reason a claim comes back undeveloped, and it is a wasted round trip of several months.
The right edition of the AMA Guides
20 CFR § 10.404 provides that OWCP evaluates the degree of impairment according to the standards in the edition of the American Medical Association’s Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment specified by OWCP. The Division of Federal Employees’ Compensation adopted the Sixth Edition for schedule award determinations effective May 1, 2009.
A rating produced under an earlier edition is not a minor technicality — it will not be accepted, and the report has to be redone. Because the Guides are periodically revised and OWCP specifies which edition applies, this is worth confirming with your claims examiner before an evaluation is scheduled rather than after the report arrives.
The Form: What the Internet Is Getting Wrong
A number of articles now state that Form CA-7 can no longer be used for schedule awards and that a new Form CA-9, Claim for Schedule Award, replaces it. There is a real basis for the confusion: a Federal Register information-collection notice for a CA-9 was published on 19 September 2022.
But checking the live OWCP forms index in August 2026, the FECA form list runs CA-1, CA-2, CA-2a, CA-5, CA-5b, CA-6, CA-7 — Claim for Compensation, CA-7a, CA-7b, CA-10, CA-12, CA-16, CA-17, CA-20 and CA-27. There is no CA-9 on it.
So: CA-7 remains the compensation claim form OWCP publishes, and a proposed information collection is not a live form. Confirm the current filing route in ECOMP or with your claims examiner before you submit — this is precisely the kind of detail that does change, and the kind of detail secondary sources repeat long after it stops being true. It is also why any article about federal claims deserves a glance at its date.
What Makes a Rating Report Hold Up
The award is only as good as the medical report behind it. A report that supports one will state the date of maximum medical improvement, describe the functional loss, apply the AMA Guides edition OWCP specifies with the relevant tables cited, express impairment as a percentage of the specific member, and — for a spinal condition — document the extremity findings rather than the spine.
And it has to be signed by a provider FECA recognises. As covered in our guide to common OWCP filing mistakes, nurse practitioners and physician assistants do not appear in the statutory definition of “physician” at 5 U.S.C. § 8101(2), so a PA’s report needs a qualified physician’s countersignature to be accepted as medical evidence. On OWCP cases at Innovare Tx, Dr. Nathan Nguyen, MD is the treating physician for exactly this reason.
Where We Fit
We treat federal employees under OWCP at our Addison, TX clinic — medical management with Charles Ortega, PA-C, treating-physician oversight from Dr. Nguyen, and physical therapy with Rowena Calleja, PT, in one office so the record is consistent. Whether you have reached maximum medical improvement is a clinical judgement, and it is one to make deliberately rather than by default.
Call (214) 233-3094 or request an appointment. Our OWCP guide for federal employees covers the claim from the beginning.
How much is an OWCP schedule award worth?
It is your impairment percentage applied to the weeks the statute assigns that body part, paid at 66⅔% of monthly pay (75% with an eligible dependent under 5 U.S.C. § 8110). Full loss of an arm is 312 weeks, a leg 288, a hand 244, a foot 205, an eye 160. So a 20% permanent impairment of the arm works out at 20% of 312 weeks — 62.4 weeks of compensation.
Can I get a schedule award for a back injury?
Not for the back itself — the spine is not a scheduled member under 5 U.S.C. § 8107, and neither is the brain or heart. Where a spinal condition causes permanent impairment in an arm or leg, such as lasting radicular loss of function, the rating is based on that extremity. The impairment evaluation therefore has to document the extremity findings specifically.
Do I have to reach maximum medical improvement first?
Yes. Impairment is rated only once further recovery is not expected, and the physician’s report has to affirm MMI has been reached and give the date. Requesting a rating while you are still improving is a common reason a claim is returned undeveloped.
Which AMA Guides edition does OWCP use?
20 CFR § 10.404 says impairment is evaluated under the edition OWCP specifies, and the Division of Federal Employees’ Compensation adopted the Sixth Edition effective May 1, 2009. A rating prepared under an earlier edition will not be accepted. Since the Guides are revised periodically, confirm the current specified edition with your claims examiner before the evaluation is scheduled.
Is Form CA-9 now required for schedule awards?
Not according to OWCP’s own published forms list. A Federal Register information collection notice for a Form CA-9, Claim for Schedule Award, was published on 19 September 2022, and several sites now state it has replaced CA-7. As of August 2026 the live OWCP FECA forms index does not list a CA-9; CA-7, Claim for Compensation, is still the published form. Confirm the current route in ECOMP or with your claims examiner before filing.
