Workers’ Compensation and Rehabilitation Act 2003

This section applies to any reference to a tribunal under any paragraph of section 500(1) relating to a worker’s injury if the reference is not about a matter mentioned in section 266.

The worker may ask the insurer to consider fresh medical evidence about the worker’s injury within 12 months of the making of the original decision.

The insurer must refer the medical evidence to a review panel to decide if the medical evidence—

is relevant to the application so decided; and

is factual medical data not known about the worker at the time of the tribunal’s decision.

The review panel must consider the medical evidence produced by the worker and may accept or reject the evidence.

A decision of the review panel is final and may not be appealed against.

If the review panel accepts the medical evidence, the insurer must refer the application to the appropriate tribunal for further decision.

If practicable, the application under this section must be further decided by the original tribunal.

If, as a result of the review, the worker is entitled to further lump sum compensation for an injury resulting in a DPI of the worker of less than 20%, the worker’s entitlement does not extend to a further election under section 189 for the injury.

In relation to a reference to a tribunal under section 500(2), a provision of a former Act dealing with a further reference on fresh evidence applies and subsections (1) to (8) do not apply.

In this section—