An injured worker may be reimbursed for massages she received at the direction of her physician, the Supreme Court of New Hampshire held Wednesday.

In Appeal of Laura LeBorgne, the court unanimously reversed a New Hampshire Compensation Appeals Board decision denying reimbursement based on a state statute requiring medical providers to submit medical forms within 10 days of first treatment.

Laura LeBorgne sustained a workplace injury while transitioning a patient from a chair to a bed as an employee of nonprofit Elliot Hospital in Manchester, New Hampshire. She sustained severe pain in her jaw, neck, shoulder and the upper right side of her body, and was prescribed ice, physical therapy and trigger point injections. When that treatment failed, she was prescribed opioids. After four years on the narcotics, her doctor began weaning treatment and prescribed chiropractic treatment and massage therapy.

She moved to New York City and began treatment with a massage therapist for weekly deep tissue massages, which the doctor stated in a 2018 letter was medically necessary to allow her to manage her pain without the use of narcotics.

Ms. LeBorgne initially covered the cost of her massage therapy, purchasing treatment packages of 10 massages to obtain a discount, and in 2017 submitted a request for reimbursement for those massages. Her request was denied, and she appealed, but the appeals board also denied her reimbursement request.

Although the appeals board found Ms. LeBorgne to be a credible witness and gave more weight to the opinion of her physician than the independent medical examiner, who spent five minutes with Ms. LeBorgne before stating that her ongoing massage treatment was “excessive” and not “medically necessary,” the board denied her request based on a state comp law that requires medical forms to be submitted within 10 days of the first treatment.

The Supreme Court of New Hampshire reversed the board’s decision. The court held that the board “erroneously considered noncompliance” with state reimbursement laws in its determination of whether the treatment was reasonable, based its decision on the lack of a submitted form. 

The court found that since Ms. LeBorgne sought reimbursement for treatment that she paid for personally, the medical form rules did not apply because they specifically state that the 10-day submission requirement “applies only to health care providers and health care facilities” seeking reimbursement for services. The plain language says nothing about a requirement for a patient-employee seeking reimbursement for payments to providers for treatment she received, the court said.

As a result, the court reversed and remanded the decision.