Florida: Court Kicks Important One-Time Change in Physician Issue to Supreme Court

Construing Florida's one-time change of physician statute, § 440.13(2)(f), a state appellate court held, in a divided decision, that it is insufficient for an employer or carrier to provide the worker with the name of a new physician within the five-day time frame required within the statute, the E/C must also provide access to that physician by supplying the worker with an actual appointment with the new medical provider. The appellate court affirmed the JCC order that found the E/C had failed to comply with the statute by providing only the name of the new physician, but the appellate court also certified that the issue was a question of great public importance and asked the Supreme Court of Florida to clarify the statute's requirements.

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 City of Bartow v. Flores, 2020 Fla. App. LEXIS 7529 (1st DCA, May 29, 2020)

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

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