Nebraska: Injured Employee Fails to Show Spinal Cord Stimulator Is Necessary Medical Expense

An employer need not pay the cost of supplying an injured employee with a spinal cord stimulator where both the employee’s testimony and that of the employer’s medical experts indicated the stimulator did not alleviate the pain associated with the employee’s primary medical condition. The employee, who sustained an admitted work-related injury, later sought to recover the cost of the stimulator, arguing that her medical providers said it was reasonable and necessary to treat her chronic pain condition. The appellate court noted that while the employee testified that the stimulator gave her some relief from her secondary symptoms—pain and tingling in the lower extremities—it did not relieve her primary pain in her back. She testified that even after the use of the stimulator her pain level in the back was a “6 or 7 out of 10.” The appellate court said that under the circumstances, it could not say the compensation court’s decision to deny recovery of the expense was clearly wrong.

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. Bracketed citations link to lexis.com.

See Yost v. Davita, Inc., 23 Neb. App. 482, 2015 Neb. App. LEXIS 204 (Dec. 29, 2015) [23 Neb. App. 482, 2015 Neb. App. LEXIS 204 (Dec. 29, 2015)]

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 94.03 [94.03]

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see http://www.workcompwriter.com/nebraska-court-injured-employee-failed-to-establish-spinal-cord-stimulator-was-reasonable-and-necessary/

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

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