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.
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Every so often DWC gets around to looking into medical treatments which may or
may not be effective. That is to see if Texas injured workers can benefit
or could be harmed, and to evaluate the economic benefits to certain
physicians. Case in point is DWC’s recently announced intent to audit the use of spinal cord stimulators to
determine the appropriateness of a physician’s decision to install one into the
body of an injured worker, and the effectiveness of the device once installed.
The review will be part of and conducted under the auspices of the DWC’s
Medical Quality Review Process. We mention here that these devices require
preauthorization under Rule 134.600 so that medical necessity is evaluated by
qualified Utilization Review Agent (URA) physicians. It is unclear
whether the audit will scrutinize URAs, the information requesting doctors send
to the URA to justify medical necessity, the treatment guidelines criteria for
stimulators, or all of the above. Apparently even our friends “down
under” are taking a look at this issue: To hell and back: Devices meant to ease pain are
causing trauma.
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