The claimant was involved in an accident in 1997. She applied for a catastrophic impairment determination in 2007, which found that she did not meet the definition. She did not dispute the determination. In 2016 she submitted a new OCF-19 seeking a catastrophic impairment determination and sought payment for assessments in that regard. The insurer argued that the claimant was not entitled to seek a catastrophic impairment determination and that it was not required to pay for assessments because the 10 year period had expired. Adjudicator Hines concluded that the claimant was permitted to submit a treatment plan for catastrophic assessments, and that such assessments could be payable because such assessments did not fall under the medical/rehabilitation limits. However, she also concluded that the procedure in the 2010 SABS applied rather than the 1996 SABS, meaning that the claimant’s entitlement to such assessments was limited to $2,000 per assessment and that rebuttal reports were not payable by the insurer. Finally, Adjudicator Hines concluded that the insurer was not required to pay for the claimed assessments because they were not reasonable and necessary. The evidence suggested that the claimant remained quite functional and did not demonstrate an ongoing functional limitation that had developed between 2007 and 2017.
