Part II: When Do You Stop Paying a Disabled Employee?

In a previous post, I heard from someone who had to make a difficult decision on how long to pay an employee who'd had a heart attack. Unfortunately, this owner did not have disability insurance. He'd been paying the disabled employee for the three months he was off. But at some point he needs to replace this person and he's wondering how to end this. The question remains, how long do you continue paying an employee when you do not have insurance and when it's clear the employee isn't coming back any time soon? There are a lot of factors to consider: How long has the employee been there? How important is the person to the company? What can you afford?

With regard to the example raised by the person who commented on my original post, I believe that the amount of money paid to the employee was responsible, but at some point, the owner needs to be responsible to his business. Some jobs cannot be temporarily staffed.

I'd be interested to hear what others have done in this situation. Any thoughts you'd like to share?