NWCDN Members regularly post articles and summary judgements in workers’ compensations law in your state.
Select a state from the dropdown menu below to scroll through the state specific archives for updates and opinions on various workers’ compensation laws in your state.
Contact information for NWCDN members is also located on the state specific links in the event you have additional questions or your company is seeking a workers’ compensation lawyer in your state.
SB 1742, effective 09/01/19, amended Texas Labor Code Section 408.0043 and requires peer review, utilization review and independent review of health care services to injured employees to be performed by doctors of “the same or a similar specialty” as the requesting physician. It will be up to the DWC to explain, hopefully by administrative rule, what “similar” actually means.
Prior to the amendment, the statute required peer review, utilization review, independent review, designated doctor, required medical examination and medical quality review panel doctors who reviewed workers’ compensation cases to hold “a professional certification in a health care specialty appropriate to the type of health care that the injured employee is receiving.” The amendment now requires a specialty “match” the requestor for certain kinds of review. It remains to be seen how “similar specialty” will be defined by the DWC.
Copyright 2019,Stone Loughlin & Swanson, LLP