North Carolina: Out-of-State Medical Care Qualifies Under State’s Two-Year Jurisdiction Rule

In North Carolina, a claim must be filed either (a) within two years of the accident [N.C. Gen. Stat. § 97-24(a)(i)], or (b) “within two years after the last payment of medical compensation when no other compensation has been paid and when the employer's liability has not otherwise been established under this Article” [N.C. Gen. Stat. § 97-24(a)(ii)]. A state appellate court ruled that in connection with the second prong of § 97-24(a), payment to out-of-state medical care providers is sufficient; the care need not have been rendered in North Carolina. Moreover, the injured worker met the “no other compensation has been paid” criteria since the benefits he had received—which exceeded $8 million in medical care—were provided under Tennessee’s—not North Carolina’s—Workers’ Compensation Act.

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 Hall v. United States Xpress, Inc., 2017 N.C. App. LEXIS 1016 (Dec. 5, 2017)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 126.07.

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