Court Opinion

ID: 9934522
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-09 18:54:09.995031+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:27.552478
License: Public Domain

I agree that an employee has no statutory right under §25-5-77(a), Ala. Code 1975, to have designated a second panel of four physicians whenever the employee simply expresses some general or undefined "dissatisfaction" with the authorized treating physician whom he or she selected from a first panel of four physicians, or with a specialist to whom she has been referred by that physician. As we previously explained in Exparte Southeast Alabama Medical Center, 835 So.2d 1042, 1046 n. 4 (Ala.Civ.App. 2002), "[i]n most cases, an employee will not have a right to medical treatment not recommended by either the initial or second authorized physician."3
I also do not believe that the trial court in this case was justified in fashioning relief for the employee on the ground that the medical treatment being offered by or through the employee's second authorized treating physician was proven not to fall within the parameters of what was "reasonably necessary," within the meaning of § 25-5-77(a). Id. I therefore concur in the result reached by the main opinion.
3 The "second authorized physician" would of course be the physician selected by the employee from the first panel of four physicians.