AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment is used in workers' compensation systems, federal systems, automobile casualty and personal injury cases to rate impairment, not disability.
The Standard in Impairment Evaluation
Standardized methodology is applied to each chapter of Guides Sixth to enhance the relevancy of impairment ratings, improve internal consistency and promote ease of application to the rating process. This ordered method enables proficiency with ratings for multiple organ systems.
The Guides Sixth applies terminology and an analytical framework based on the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) from the World Health Organization to generate five impairment classes that permit the rating of the patient from no impairment to most severe.
Understand Differences Between Impairment and Disability
AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment clarifies the critical difference between medical impairment and disability, as diagnosis affects treatment and how a patient is viewed by a state's workers' compensation system.
Impairment is a significant deviation, loss, or loss of use of any body structure or body function in an individual with a health condition, disorder or disease.
Disability is activity limitations and/or participation restrictions in an individual with a health condition, disorder or disease.
With AMA Guides Sixth, physicians can measure the extent of impairment as related to normal functional capacity.
Incorporating the latest scientific research and evolving medical opinion provided by nationally and internationally recognized experts, the AMA Guides Sixth offers:
- Required clinical information needed to rate a given condition
- Contemporary, evidence-based concepts and terminology of disablement from the ICF
- Standardized approach across organ systems and chapters that allows evaluators to document functional assessment, clinical tests and physical findings
- Uniform grids for each organ system that arrange commonly used ICD-9 diagnoses within the five classes of impairment severity, according to the consensus-based dominant criterion
- Step-by-step grading instructions in each chapter to promote consistent scoring
Make Transparent and Reproducible Decisions
Functionally based histories, physical findings and broadly accepted objective clinical test results are integrated where applicable in Guides Sixth to help physicians determine the grade within the impairment class and make transparent and reproducible decisions.
The AMA has reprinted the Guides Sixth to incorporate updates to the original edition—all found in the Clarifications and Corrections document released in 2008.
Questions or comments related to this reprint? Email: Guides6@ama-assn.org
See the states, Canadian provinces and foreign countries that use the Guides Sixth >