Return-to-work guide
Returning to work after surgery
After surgery, the medical decisions stay with your surgeon and your nominated treating doctor. The return-to-work side runs alongside that care — matching what you can safely do to duties your employer can offer, at the pace your certificate of capacity sets. This guide explains how that coordination works across the NSW schemes. It is general information, not medical advice.
How a post-surgical return-to-work plan is built
A return-to-work plan after surgery starts from your certificate of capacity. Your treating doctor sets what you are cleared to do, and we build the workplace side around that. In most cases the plan is staged: it might begin with lighter or modified duties and graded hours, then step up as your certified capacity changes. We coordinate the worker, employer and insurer so everyone works to the same plan, and we review it at set points. If the certificate changes, the duties change with it. The aim is a recover-at-work pathway that holds, rather than a fixed date to be back at full hours.
Suitable duties and worksite adjustments
Suitable duties are tasks matched to what your treating doctor has certified you can safely do while you recover. After surgery that often means adjusting the worksite so the duties are realistic — the equipment, the layout or the work pattern. A workplace and ergonomic assessment looks at the job as it is actually done and sets out practical changes. Where your capacity is unclear, a functional capacity evaluation gives an objective baseline your treating doctor and insurer can rely on. None of this is medical treatment. It is the workplace planning that sits around the care your doctor directs, so the duties you take on match what you have been certified to do.
Who is involved, and how it is funded
A post-surgical return involves the injured worker, the employer, the insurer and the healthcare team. We act as the coordinator between them, keep everyone across each milestone, and document what is agreed. Under the NSW workers compensation scheme, Nexus Rehab is a SIRA-approved workplace rehabilitation provider, and you have the right to nominate us as your provider. For approved services, there is no cost to you — the insurer pays under the scheme, and we confirm funding before any service begins. We work across all of NSW, metropolitan and regional.
This is general information about returning to work, not medical advice. Your treating doctor directs your medical care — Nexus Rehab coordinates the return-to-work side and works to their certificate of capacity.