Medical Marijuana

Cannabis Reimbursement Trend Grows

Courts are increasingly leaning in favor of forcing payers to reimburse workers' comp claimants for medical marijuana.
By: | June 24, 2016

An insurer reimbursed workers’ compensation claimant Peter Mould for $4,600 of the $10,000 he has spent buying cannabis since obtaining a state medical marijuana program registration card nearly two years ago.

Mould said he expects reimbursement from American International Group for the remainder of $10,000, and payments for any future purchases of cannabis buds bought at a dispensary licensed under Connecticut’s 4-year-old medical marijuana program.

The Connecticut claimant’s case shares similarities with others across a few jurisdictions where insurers have reimbursed workers’ comp claimants for their purchases under state medical marijuana laws.

Those similarities include injured workers reportedly obtaining relief from chronic pain — a condition that torments sufferers and claims payers alike, often because it leads to the prescribing of dangerous opioid narcotics and the costly complications they cause.

Mould, 43, believes he is saving the worker’s comp insurer thousands of dollars for the costs normally driven by opioids that doctors prescribed for him following a 2011 workplace injury. The injury led to two cervical spine surgeries and “countless hours of physical therapy” that didn’t eliminate his pain and back spasms, Mould said.

“The medical cannabis absolutely helps,” said Mould who injured his neck by pulling up glued-down carpet while employed at a restoration company.  “I don’t take narcotics anymore because of medical cannabis.”

“Reimbursement, as opposed to direct pay, is a significant legal distinction that I think somewhat insulates the carrier or self-insured employer,” — Paul H. Sighinolfi, executive director and chair, Maine Workers’ Compensation Board

Cases of workers’ comp insurers paying for marijuana across the country likely remain few and isolated to states like Connecticut, Maine, Minnesota, and New Mexico.

But Mould’s attorney, George H. Romania of the Law Office of George H. Romania LLC in Hamden, Conn., expects many more such claims. Growing recognition of the harms caused by treating pain sufferers with opioids will drive more claimants to seek cannabis, he said.

Some state medical marijuana laws protect insurers from having to pay for the drug. But where the laws allow, claimants have found judges or hearing administrators supporting their requests for reimbursements.

In Maine, for example, administrative law judges have heard five cases with workers’ comp claimants requesting payment for cannabis purchased under the state’s medical marijuana program, said Paul H. Sighinolfi, executive director and chair of Maine’s Workers’ Compensation Board.

Three of those cases resulted in the judges ordering insurers to reimburse claimants for their purchases. All three cases involved patients suffering “intractable pain,” Sighinolfi said. Two of those decisions are under appeal.

The first case heard by Maine judges involved a worker who strained his back in 1989 while lifting an industrial garage door. His employer paid for treatment at several prominent hospitals. The pain persisted and he was diagnosed as suffering from complex regional pain syndrome.

He eventually consumed between 120-140 milligrams of OxyContin daily. He also received Dilaudid, another opioid, for breakthrough pain and periodically received for morphine injections.

In a “last-ditch effort,” his physician agreed he should see a doctor known to certify patients to Maine’s medical marijuana program.

By the time of his hearing to consider whether he should be reimbursed for purchasing cannabis, he was not consuming any narcotics, said Sighinolfi, who interviewed the injured worker’s physician. Instead, the claimant found relief by vaping cannabis three or four times a day.

The cannabis strain he vapes has been bred to so that it does not contain the ingredient that typically produces a marijuana high when consumed.

“This is a very believable guy,” Sighinolfi said of the claimant.

As first occurred in New Mexico two years ago, when claims payers in other states have been ordered to fund cannabis, it hinges on reimbursing claimants for their medical marijuana purchases. Judges evidently believe that requiring reimbursement insulates claims payers from federal law prohibiting the purchase of marijuana.

“Reimbursement, as opposed to direct pay, is a significant legal distinction that I think somewhat insulates the carrier or self-insured employer,” Sighinolfi said.

Trey Gillespie, assistant vice president, workers' compensation, for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America

Trey Gillespie, assistant vice president, workers’ compensation, for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America

But Trey Gillespie, assistant vice president, workers’ compensation, for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI), disagrees. He argues that the reimbursement arrangements still force underwriters to violate federal law regulating financial services companies.

A few PCI members have voiced willingness to consider voluntarily reimbursing for medical marijuana, should studies show it indeed addresses chronic pain and can help eliminate opioid consumption.

But the federal classification of marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug currently hampers such research. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is now considering changing that status and is expected to announce soon whether it will do so.

“What is needed are high-quality studies on the effectiveness of marijuana in the treatment of the diseases for which it is authorized in various states, whether we are talking about glaucoma, or chronic pain,” Gillespie said.

Roberto Ceniceros is a retired senior editor of Risk & Insurance® and the former chair of the National Workers' Compensation and Disability Conference® & Expo. Read more of his columns and features.

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