Safety Sherpa
Where the employer's discretion ends
There is a real choice available between conflicting contemporaneous medical recommendations when no treatment has yet been given. That discretion closes the moment treatment is actually provided. The test is the objective fact of what was done, not a professional opinion about whether it needed doing.
The practical consequence for an emergency room visit
An employee sent to an emergency room who leaves with a prescription has generated a recordable case, and no amount of subsequent review changes that. It is worth knowing before the visit rather than after.
What still is not medical treatment
A non-prescription medication at non-prescription strength is first aid. It is the prescription — the fact of it being issued — that moves the case across the line.
Safety Sherpa is software, not a safety consultancy. This page quotes the cited regulation and links to the source text so you can read it yourself. It is not legal advice and does not replace a qualified person's judgment about a genuinely unclear case — our tools walk you through the decisions the regulations require and record your reasoning. The determination is yours to make.