Florida: Carrier Did not Lose Right to Designate Physician Where Its Original Choice was More Than 50 Miles from Worker

Where a workers’ compensation carrier supplied the injured worker with a referral physician and appointment options with the five-day period required by § 440.12(2)(f), Fla. Stat., that carrier did not lose its right to designate an alternative physician because the first referral’s office was more than 50 miles from the worker’s residence. The court acknowledged that the worker had designated his own alternative physician but noted as well that the physician did not accept workers’ compensation patients and the worker had not provided the carrier with any other names. The carrier had provided a second alternative physician, but the worker had objected, contending this physician was also too far away from his residence. The JCC agreed that a closer physician should be used, but ordered the carrier to again make the choice, to which the worker appealed. The appellate court affirmed, holding that the JCC had ultimately granted exactly the sort of relief requested by the worker—an alternate physician. Nothing had occurred that took that choice away from the carrier.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the co-Editor-in-Chief and Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Harman v. Merch. Transp., 2021 Fla. App. LEXIS 13033 (1st DCA Sept. 15, 2021)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 94.02.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see

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