Medical Review Panel information for physicians and chiropractors

An injured worker applying for a Medical Review Panel examination may ask for your help by asking you to complete an Enabling Certificate for Medical Review Panel Examination.

The Medical Review Panel can only proceed once an injured worker has completed the appeals process with the Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB), meaning they have received a decision from the Board Appeal Tribunal.

Your patient’s application can be for one or more of the following reasons:

1. Your patient has a greater functional impairment than was decided by us.
2. Your patient has a greater limitation in working capacity than was decided by us.
3. Your patient should receive compensation for a longer period than the period allowed by us.
4. Our decision was based on a physician’s report that was wrong or incomplete.
5. Any combination of the reasons listed above.

You are responsible for completing the Enabling Certificate for Medical Review Panel Examination. The certificate must include the following information:

• The bona fide medical question to be decided. The medical question must be in relation to a medical issue that was decided by the Board Appeal Tribunal. Your patient can provide you with a copy of the decision so that you may reference the statements in that decision.
• The aspects of the Board Appeal Tribunal’s decision with which you disagree, along with the rationale for your disagreement with their decision.
• Lastly, you must provide medical support for your position. You can provide medical literature or research in support of your position or you may reference another physician’s comments that would support your position on the medical question.

The Board Appeal Tribunal will review your patient’s application and your certificate and will decide whether the application qualifies for a Medical Review Panel. If the application goes forward, the board services department will send your patient a list of appropriate physicians who may be able to sit on the panel. Please note that if you complete the certificate, you may not sit on the Medical Review Panel.

Once your patient gives us their choice of physicians to sit on the panel, those physicians are contacted and if they agree to sit, the chairperson sets a date to meet. We then provide the members of the Medical Review Panel with all relevant documents from your patient’s file.

The panel can order any tests they feel necessary to reach a decision.

After the examination, the Medical Review Panel will provide a decision to the board stating:

• The condition of the worker;
• The fitness of the worker for employment;
• If the worker is found unfit to work, the cause of that inability to work;
• The nature and degree of any limitation in the worker’s capacity to work caused by the injury for which the worker claims compensation;
• The extent of any permanent functional impairment caused by the injury; and
• Any additional medical matters that any member of the Medical Review Panel considers to be pertinent to the claim.

When they provide us with their decision, we inform your patient within 10 days of receiving the decision. The Medical Review Panel’s decision is binding on your patient, and on us.

If the application and the certificate do not qualify, you may submit another certificate on behalf of your patient. You can ask our chief medical officer to review your certificate and explain how our decision was reached and what information would be helpful to your patient’s application. You can reach our chief medical officer at 306.787.4370.

If you are a member of a Medical Review Panel, here are your responsibilities.