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Virginia: Claimant’s Aversion to Hypodermic Needles Did Not Justify Change in Physicians

May 10, 2019 (1 min read)

A claimant’s aversion to hypodermic needles associated with injection treatments for her lower back condition was not a sufficient reason to justify a change in physicians, held a Virginia appellate court. Claimant’s physician observed that claimant had an essentially normal MRI and that a functional capacity evaluation expert had opined that claimant had not sufficiently exerted herself during the exam and likely was exaggerating her symptoms. The physician told the claimant that given those circumstances and her refusal to undergo the injection treatments, there was little, if anything, that he could do to relieve her discomfort. The appellate court held that the physician’s actions did not amount to a discharge of the claimant from the physician’s care.

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

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Yahner v. Fire-X Corp., 2019 Va. App. LEXIS 101 (Apr. 30, 2019)

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

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

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see