C. Medical Compensation
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C. Medical Compensation
Employers must also pay for employees' injury-related medical expenses:
Medical, surgical, hospital and other treatment, including medical and surgical supplies as reasonably may be required, for a period not exceeding ten weeks from the date of an injury, to effect a cure or give relief and for an additional time as in the judgment of the Commission will tend to
lessen the period of disability ...[and,] [i]n addition thereto, the original artificial members as reasonably may be necessary at the end of the healing period shall be provided by the employer. . . .
In cases in which total and permanent disability results, reasonable and necessary nursing services, medicines, prosthetic devices, sick travel, medical, hospital, and other treatment or care shall be paid during the life of the injured employee, without regard to any limitation. including the maximum compensation limit. In cases of partial disability prosthetic devices shall be also furnished during the life of the injured employee or so long as they are necessary.66
"[T]he employer shall not be liable in damages for malpractice by a physician or surgeon furnished by him [for treating an employee's injury], but the consequences of any such malpractice shall be deemed part of the injury resulting from the accident and shall be compensated for as such."67 With respect to prosthetic devices, eyeglasses, or hearing aids damaged by a work-related injury, the Act provides that an employer's liability extends to repair or replacement costs for such medical equipment.68
The value of medical compensation cannot exceed the "charges as prevail in the community for similar treatment of injured persons of a like standard of living when such treatment is paid for by the injured person.,"69 thus "prevent[ing] charges from medical providers and surgical services to an injured employee being made at a higher rate than they otherwise would be because they are to be paid by the employer or his insurer."70
1. Vocational rehabilitation services
The Act specifically authorizes vocational rehabilitation services, but only with respect to ionizing radiation injuries.71 Even then, the services are limited to fifty-two weeks, subject to a single extension of twenty-six weeks.72 This does not, however, mean that vocational rehabilitation services are not available as a form of medical compensation in other types of cases. Because one of the primary purposes of workers' compensation legislation is to reinvest injured employees with wage-earning capacity, vocational rehabilitation services are a plausible form of medical compensation in South Carolina.
Other states include vocational rehabilitation services within the definition of medical compensation.73 In South Carolina, section 42-15-60 authorizes medical compensation if it "will tend to lessen the period of disability." Because "disability" under the Act is a legal concept and not a medical concept,74 and because the language of section 42-15-60 is couched in terms of disability and not impairment, section 42-15-60 authorizes vocational rehabilitation services.
2. Attendant care services
Attendant care services are also available as "other treatment" or "care" under section 42-15-60. There have only been a few administrative decisions by the Commission awarding such care, and there are as yet no published decisions in South Carolina on point. However, "[t]he South Carolina Workers' Compensation Act was tailored after the North Carolina Act and opinions of the North Carolina Supreme Court construing such Act are entitled to great weight with the appellate courts of this state."75
This rule is significant because in 1967, the Supreme Court of North Carolina in Godwin v. Swift & Co. held that the phrase "other treatment or care" under that state's Act includes compensation to family members of employees who need around-the-clock attention and care for their work-related injuries.76 At that time, the phrase "other...
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