Bone Fracture at Work: Claiming ART Compensation in Argentina

You broke a bone at work and were operated on with plates, screws or rods. That is internal fixation, and Argentine law treats the fracture as a workplace accident from the first minute: the injury does not have to appear on any official list. Your ART (the compulsory workers' compensation insurer) owes you the surgery and the hardware, a monthly benefit while you cannot work, and compensation for any permanent impairment. Since February 2026 the percentage is measured against a new schedule.

1. Why a fracture needs no listed-disease status

Article 6, subsection 1 of Law 24.557 defines a workplace accident as "any sudden and violent event occurring by reason of or on the occasion of work, or on the journey between the worker's home and the place of work". A fall from height, a crush injury from a load, a forklift strike or a crash on the way to site all fit directly.

That is the crucial difference from occupational diseases. A herniated disc or carpal tunnel syndrome must appear on the list of Decree 658/96 for the work connection to be presumed. A fracture needs none of that: it is enough to prove the sudden event and its link to the work. The incident report, witnesses, CCTV, the emergency room record and the notice to the insurer are the evidence for that first stage. On construction sites it is also worth documenting safety breaches: see construction site accidents.

From the moment notice is given, the ART assumes the benefits in kind of article 20: medical and pharmaceutical care, prosthetics and orthopaedics, rehabilitation and vocational retraining. Fixation hardware falls under prosthetics and orthopaedics, and the ART must supply and pay for it. Those benefits run "until complete recovery or for as long as the disabling symptoms persist" (article 20, paragraph 3), which covers physiotherapy and, where the surgeon indicates it, the second operation to remove the hardware.

None of this is decided by the insurer. Article 21 gives the Medical Boards the power to determine the work-related nature of the accident, the character and degree of impairment, and "the content and scope of the benefits in kind". Paragraph 4 adds that the procedure is free for the worker, including travel and additional tests.

2. Temporary vs permanent disability: when compensation arises

While the injury temporarily prevents you from performing your usual duties you are on Temporary Work Disability (article 7). During that period you receive a monthly benefit equal to the monthly value of the Base Income; the employer pays the first ten days and the ART pays from there on (article 13). Social security contributions are withheld and family allowances are paid as if it were salary.

Temporary disability ends by medical discharge, by a declaration of Permanent Work Disability, after two years from the first disabling manifestation, or on death. One detail rarely explained: if you returned to work and relapsed from the same accident, temporary disability continues and all the periods are added up to a total of two effective years of leave (article 7, paragraph 3).

Compensation for impairment arises only once the sequela is permanent. Article 8 calls it total where the loss of working capacity reaches 66% or more, and partial below that. The vast majority of fractures with well-united internal fixation fall in the partial band.

What raises the percentage is not the type of fracture but what is left afterwards: non-union, malunion visible on comparative X-ray, limb shortening, joint stiffness from prolonged immobilisation, instability. All of it has to appear in the ruling before you sign anything.

3. How Decree 549/2025 rates a fracture

A new schedule has applied since 2 February 2026. Decree 549/2025 replaced Annex I of Decree 659/96 and took effect 180 calendar days after publication. Its article 3 provides that it applies "to every assessment or determination of work-related impairment not yet issued, regardless of the administrative or judicial stage it is at": if your percentage has not been fixed, this is the schedule you will be measured by even if the accident predates it.

Applying the schedule is not optional. Article 9 of Law 26.773 requires administrative bodies and courts to align their reports, rulings and judgments with the impairment table. The stated grounds of Decree 549/2025 itself recall that the Supreme Court has consistently held that deciding a Law 24.557 case without applying the schedule is an unequivocal departure from the statute.

What the fracture percentage already includes

This point is worth money. In the Osteoarticular chapter, the percentages in the Upper Limb Fractures and Lower Limb Fractures tables already include the loss from functional repercussion — restricted range of motion and/or ankylosis — and limb shortening. They are not added separately. The same applies to arthroplasties, joint instability and muscle-tendon injuries.

Where several sequelae affect the same side of the body, the osteoarticular chapter requires them to be added arithmetically, unlike the Remaining Capacity method the schedule uses by default. But that sum is capped by region:

• Upper limb: hand and/or wrist, up to 50%; adding the forearm, up to 55%; adding the elbow and/or arm, up to 60%; adding the shoulder girdle, up to 66%, the value of forequarter amputation.
• Lower limb: foot and/or ankle, up to 35%; adding the leg, up to 40%; adding the knee, up to 55%; adding thigh, hip or hemipelvis, up to 70%, the value of hip disarticulation.
• Fingers: impairment from phalangeal fracture, restricted motion, ankylosis or instability of the thumb may not exceed 40%, the value of amputation at the trapeziometacarpal joint. For index, middle, ring and little fingers the cap is 10%, the value of amputation at the metacarpophalangeal joint.
• Toes: the great toe is capped at 12% and the second to fifth toes at 3%.

The weighting factors of article 8, paragraph 3 of Law 24.557 then apply on top of the table percentage: age, type of occupation and prospects of redeployment. The full worked calculation is in what the ART pays for fractures and internal fixation.

4. What it pays: formula, statutory floor and the 20% add-on

For permanent partial impairment of up to 50%, article 14, paragraph 2(a) of Law 24.557 sets a single lump sum: 53 × Monthly Base Income × impairment percentage × (65 ÷ your age) at the date of first disabling manifestation.

The Base Income is not your last payslip. Under article 12, it is the monthly average of every wage accrued in the year before the first disabling manifestation, with each wage indexed month by month by the RIPTE wage index. The mechanism, with a worked example, is in how ART compensation is calculated.

The formula carries a floor updated every six months. Under article 2 of SRT Resolution 39/2026 (Official Gazette, 2 September 2026), between 1 September 2026 and 28 February 2027 compensation under article 14, paragraph 2 may not be lower than ARS 114,354,110 multiplied by the impairment percentage. You always receive the higher of formula or floor.

On top of that total comes the single-payment add-on of article 3 of Law 26.773, equal to 20%, where the harm occurred at the workplace or while you were at the employer's disposal.

Two less common bands, but possible in a polytrauma with multiple fractures. Between more than 50% and less than 66%, article 14, paragraph 2(b) provides for a periodic annuity instead of a lump sum, plus the single-payment supplement of article 11, paragraph 4 — ARS 50,824,055 under SRT Resolution 39/2026 for the same half-year. That annuity scheme is what the Supreme Court called into question in «Milone», on lump sum versus periodic annuity. From 66% upwards, the total disability regime of article 15 applies.

5. The Medical Board procedure, step by step

Article 1 of Law 27.348 made the Jurisdictional Medical Board a compulsory prior administrative stage that excludes any other intervention. You may choose the board covering your home address, the place where you actually work, or the place where you habitually report. Here is how representation before the Medical Board works.

1. Notice and treatment: the ART must open the file and authorise immediate care, including internal fixation surgery where indicated.
2. Temporary disability period: while immobilisation and rehabilitation last, the ART pays the monthly benefit and covers consultations, imaging and surgical materials.
3. Free legal representation: a lawyer is compulsory, and article 1 of Law 27.348 places the fees and "other expenses incurred by the worker" exclusively on the ART.
4. Medical discharge challenge: if you were discharged but still have pain, instability or restricted movement, it is filed in person before the Medical Board with the accident notice and the discharge certificate (SRT Resolution 179/15, as amended by SRT Resolution 41/22). Detail in challenging a medical discharge before the SRT.
5. Impairment determination: if the ART discharged you without recording any sequela, or never requested the assessment hearing, you can push the procedure yourself from the 21st day counted from the day after temporary disability ends or treatment concludes.
6. 60-day deadline: the Medical Board must rule within 60 administrative working days from the first properly completed filing, extendable for duly reasoned factual issues (article 3, Law 27.348).
7. Settlement and payment: if you agree, the Settlement Service issues the approval, which carries administrative res judicata. Sums are made available within five days of service of the approval (Annex I, article 4) and deposited into your payroll account (article 17). Article 4 of Law 26.773 also requires the ART to notify you of the amounts within fifteen days.
8. Appeal: if the percentage is low, you may appeal to the Central Medical Board or go straight to the labour court of the jurisdiction where the board sat (article 2, Law 27.348), with a court-appointed medical expert. Contingency-fee agreements are prohibited in these proceedings.

One point that rescues bad settlements: Annex I, article 3 of Law 27.348 forbids approving a proposed agreement for less than what strict application of the statute yields. If the insurer's voluntary offer falls below that, it cannot be approved. And if the claim was rejected outright, the route is in ART rejection of a workplace accident.

6. Mistakes that cost you money

• Accepting discharge without recording pain or restriction: without filing the challenge you lose the chance to document the real sequela before the file closes. See premature medical discharge.
• Not keeping the pre- and post-operative X-rays: they are the core evidence of malunion, shortening or hardware malposition, and the schedule requires an anatomical substrate before a restriction of movement counts.
• Signing a voluntary settlement without your own doctor: the insurer arrives with its own report. You are entitled to appoint a party-nominated medical expert before approving any figure.
• Assuming a "simple" fracture pays nothing: even when the bone unites well, joint stiffness or shortening can generate a percentage. If you were left with ankle or knee instability, see ankle and knee sprain claims.
• Not claiming the second operation: removing the fixation hardware, where indicated, remains a benefit in kind payable by the ART.
• Letting deadlines run: the board's 60 days, the 21 days to push the determination and the 15 days to be notified of the amounts all run without warning.

Frequently asked questions about fractures and internal fixation