§1034.2. Reimbursement schedule

            A. The assistant secretary of the office of workers' compensation administration shall establish and promulgate a reimbursement schedule for drugs, supplies, hospital care and services, medical and surgical treatment, and any nonmedical treatment recognized by the laws of this state as legal and due under the Workers' Compensation Act and applicable to any person or corporation who renders such care, services, or treatment or provides such drugs or supplies to any person covered by Chapter 10 of Title 23 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes of 1950.

            B. The assistant secretary shall adopt, in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act, rules and regulations necessary to establish and implement a reimbursement schedule for such care, services, treatment, drugs, and supplies.

            C.(1) The reimbursement schedule shall include charges limited to the mean of the usual and customary charges for such care, services, treatment, drugs, and supplies. Any necessary adjustments to the reimbursement schedule adopted and established in accordance with the provisions of this Section may be made annually.

            (2) The assistant secretary shall have the authority to collect the information and data necessary to calculate the reimbursement schedule. The collection of information and data shall be governed by the following guidelines:

            (a) The assistant secretary shall create a written survey detailing the information requested.

            (b) The survey shall be managed by the office of workers' compensation administration in conjunction with an academic institution.

            (c) The information requested shall be based upon data at least six months old.

            (d) There shall be a minimum of thirty health care providers reporting data upon which each disseminated statistic is based.

            (e) No individual health care provider's data shall represent more than twenty-five percent on a weighted basis of each statistic.

            (f) Any information disseminated shall be sufficiently aggregated such that it will not allow recipients to identify the prices charged or compensation paid by any particular health care provider.

            (3) All information collected pursuant to this Subsection shall be confidential and privileged, shall not be public record, and shall not be subject to subpoena. Such confidentiality shall be strictly maintained by the assistant secretary, all employees of the office, and by the academic institution and shall be used exclusively for the purpose of promulgating the workers' compensation reimbursement schedule. Whoever violates this Paragraph shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and fined not more than five hundred dollars for each offense.

            (4) Notwithstanding any other provisions of this Section, reimbursement for dental services shall not exceed the seventieth percentile in the current edition of the National Dental Advisory Service (NDAS) Comprehensive Fee Report, utilizing the average of geographic multipliers for Louisiana as published in the NDAS report.

            D. Fees in excess of the reimbursement schedule shall not be recoverable against the employee, employer, or workers' compensation insurer.

            E. Nothing in this Section shall prevent a health care provider from charging a fee for such care, services, treatment, drugs, or supplies that is less than the reimbursement established by the reimbursement schedule.

            F.(1) Should a dispute arise between a health care provider and the employee, employer, or workers' compensation insurer, either party may submit the dispute to the office in the same manner and subject to the same procedures as established for dispute resolution of claims for workers' compensation benefits.

            (2) In addition to any other occasion when consolidation of claims is otherwise allowed by applicable law, whenever multiple disputes exist between a single health care provider and a single "payor" as defined in R.S. 23:1142(A) concerning the proper amount payable pursuant to the reimbursement schedule, then either the health care provider or the payor shall have the right to have all such disputes between the payor and the health care provider consolidated and tried together. The venue for such consolidated claims shall be in either the workers' compensation district of the parish in which the domicile of the provider is located or the workers' compensation district of the parish in which the domicile of the payor or employer is located.

            Acts 1987, No. 633, §1, eff. July 9, 1987; Acts 1988, No. 938, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1989; Act 1989, No. 25, §1; Acts 1989, No. 260, §1, eff. June 26, 1989; Acts 1989, No. 454, §2, eff. Jan. 1, 1990; Acts 2004, No. 257, §§1, 2, eff. June 15, 2004; Acts 2004, No. 534, §1, eff. June 25, 2004; Acts 2005, No. 257, §1.