Florida: Carrier’s Failure to Respond Does Not Mean Claimant Can Switch Medical Specialties

Resolving a split among the state’s judges of compensation claims, a Florida appellate court held that an employer/carrier’s failure to respond timely to a request for a one-time change of physician does not entitle the employee to a physician in a different specialty from that of the originally authorized physician. The court added that procedures existed for claimants to seek authorization for physicians beyond the specialties originally established for their workplace accidents. But § 440.13(2)(f), Fla. Stat., could not be read to allow that result simply because an employer/carrier had not timely responded to a one-time change of physician.

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

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See RetailFirst Ins. Co. v. Davis, 2017 Fla. App. LEXIS 622 (1st DCA, Jan. 23, 2017)

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

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