White v. Mount Carmel Medical Center11/26/2002
.Elise White, plaintiff-appellant, appeals from a judgment of the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas granting a motion for summary judgment filed by Mount Carmel Medical Center ("Mount Carmel"), defendant-appellee.
.Appellee is a hospital located in Columbus, Ohio, and is a self-insured employer for the purposes of administering workers' compensation claims. Appellant began working for appellee on October 16, 1995, as a part-time mammographer and became a full-time employee on June 9, 1996. Thereafter, appellant began working in appellee's mobile mammography unit, operating a van containing a motorized mammography unit and performing mammographies at various locations. In September 1998, appellant resigned from appellee to take another job; however, she returned to appellee on November 22, 1998, and resumed her previous duties.
.On January 6, 1999, appellant slipped on ice while operating the mobile unit and sustained a wrist injury. On that same date, appellee approved appellant's request for medical leave of absence. In an operative note for the January 12, 1999 surgical procedure, the injury was diagnosed as a comminuted distal radial fracture with significant dorsal comminution. Appellant filed a workers' compensation claim with appellee, a self-insured employer, indicating that she had sustained a wrist fracture. On January 26, 1999, appellee certified appellant's claim for "Fracture, right wrist." It also approved various surgeries, treatments, and physical therapy.
.On March 4, 1999, Dr. Karl Kumler indicated in his treatment notes that appellant's wrist fracture was progressing well and that he had a "slight concern" of possible reflex sympathetic dystrophy ("RSD"). He also indicated that he was concerned about appellant's hand function due to finger stiffness and referred her to a hand therapist. He completed a C-9 Form and returned it to appellee. The form indicated, among other things, that appellant had finger swelling. On March 11, 1999, Tammy Riggenbach, a certified hand therapist, opined that appellant may have RSD. On March 12, 1999, Riggenbach wrote a letter to Dr. Kumler, appellant's treating physician, indicating that she believed that appellant had RSD relating to her wrist injury and suggested that Dr. Kumler consider using stellate ganglion block injections ("blocks" or "block injections") to arrest the RSD. Riggenbach also related to Dr. Kumler that such injections would be complicated by the fact that appellant had vagal response, which may cause a person to go into shock when pricked with needles.
.In a March 15, 1999 C-9 statement, Dr. Kumler requested that stellate ganglion blocks be permitted to arrest the RSD. Appellee denied any treatment of blocks. Riggenbach claims that appellee told her that the claim was denied because RSD was a pre-existing condition. On March 18, 1999, Riggenbach prepared a report for Dr. Kumler, and appellee expressing her concern that RSD was denied on the basis of a pre-existing condition. Riggenbach also expressed that appellant's hand was not functional due to pain and RSD symptoms. On March 19, 1999, Riggenbach spoke with Charlene Cordle at Mount Carmel East regarding RSD literature she could provide to Patricia Rutter, supervisor of appellee's Employee Health Services. Apparently, a record of the heated conversation was made, and Riggenbach was told by her supervisor that a complaint had been made regarding the conversation.
.On March 22, 1999, Dr. Kumler requested in a C-9 that appellee allow the RSD in appellant's workers' compensation claim and authorize consultations for appellant with Dr. Claire Wolfe and Dr. Scott Berliner to diagnose RSD. On that same day, appellee appro
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