MMI (Maximum Medical Improvement)

Maximum medical improvement is the medical opinion that your condition has plateaued: further treatment may maintain you, but significant recovery is no longer expected. It is defined in Minn. Stat. § 176.011 and matters mostly because of what it triggers: temporary total disability benefits generally end 90 days after you receive written notice that you have reached MMI, whether or not you have a job to return to.

Two practical points. First, MMI is an opinion, not a fact: a treating doctor and an insurer’s IME doctor frequently disagree about it, and the 90-day clock only starts with proper written service of the MMI report on you. Second, MMI does not end everything: TPD can continue if you are working at a wage loss, PPD is typically rated at or after MMI, and medical care that maintains your condition remains compensable.

If an MMI notice arrives while you are still off work, treat it like a deadline document, because it is one. That 90-day window is when return-to-work plans, rating disputes, and retraining questions all come to a head at once.