Idaho: Additional Medical Care Allowed for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Despite Five-Year Lapse in Medical Treatment

The Industrial Commission erred when it determined that a former employee was not entitled to additional medical care for her bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) because, at least in part, she had not seen her treating physician in five years. The court noted that the reasonable treatment required by Idaho Code Ann. § 72–432(1) included palliative care and during that five-year period, she had continued her use of, and claim for, wrist braces to alleviate the condition. The employer had conceded that the employee’s CTS was causally connected to her employment. As to why she had returned to the doctor sooner, the employee testified that the doctor could only give her pain medication and wrist braces, that she could not take sick leave or vacation time to go to the doctor and have him tell her that she had CTS. She said, “I don’t need anybody to tell me that. I know that.”

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 Weymiller v. Lockheed Idaho Techs., 2017 Ida. LEXIS 224 (July 11, 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