RetailFirst Insurance Company and Servpro of S. E. Tampa v. Brenton Davis

Under Florida’s workers compensation laws, an employee is entitled to a onetime “change of physician during the course of treatment for any one accident” upon submission of a written request to do so. § 440.13(2)(f), Fla. Stat. (2016). In this case of first impression, we are called upon to decide an issue upon which the judges of compensation claims are split: whether an employer/carrier’s failure to respond timely to such a request entitles the employee to a physician in a different specialty from that of the originally authorized physician. We hold that it does not.

The final order at issue…