Where this situation arises, while subsequent earnings (eg Work and Income payments) need to be taken into account in the calculation of weekly compensation arrears, they cannot be taken into account when considering elegibilty to interest.
Elective surgery is a significant area for ACC with over 50,000 applications for funding received each year at a cost of $234 million in 2009/10. Over the last three years, ACC has phased out auto-approval processes and applied additional resource and medical expertise to ensure only those applications that are appropriate for an accident compensation scheme are approved. While the majority of applications are still approved (78% of decisions made), more surgery cases are being declined, which has led to a high level of interest in ACC’s decision-making.