Connecticut: Employer Need Not Pay for Palliative Medical Care

A Connecticut court affirmed the finding of the commissioner that various medications prescribed by the plaintiff’s treating physician for a head injury that occurred some 18 years earlier were palliative rather than curative, and thus were not reasonable and necessary medical treatment after the date of the treating physician’s deposition. The court noted that the physician testified that the plaintiff had reached MMI in March, 2002, but that he continued to see the plaintiff for pain management. Other testimony by a neurosurgeon indicated that the plaintiff showed no signs of brain injury but rather had degenerative changes typical for his age and that no additional treatment would benefit him. The court observed that reasonable or necessary medical care was that which is “curative or remedial.” Curative or remedial care is that which seeks to repair the damage to health caused by the job even if not enough health is restored to enable the employee to return to work. Any therapy designed to keep the employee at work or to return him to work was curative, said the court, as was any therapy designed to eliminate pain so that the employee could work. The determination of whether the treatment is curative or palliative is a question of fact to be resolved by the commissioner, indicated the court.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is a leading commentator and expert on the law of workers’ compensation.

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance. Bracketed citations link to lexis.com.

See Sellers v. Sellers Garage, Inc., 2015 Conn. App. LEXIS 83 (Mar. 10, 2015) [2015 Conn. App. LEXIS 83 (Mar. 10, 2015)]

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 94.04 [94.04]

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

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