Filing Medical Discharge Disputes at the SRT

You were discharged, but you are still in pain, you have not recovered movement, or you know you cannot go back to your tasks. The insurer's discharge is not the last word: you can take the disagreement to the Jurisdictional Medical Board through the Medical Discharge Dispute proceeding. Legal representation is mandatory, and the insurer pays for it.

1. What the discharge dispute is and when it applies

Law 24,557 calls Temporary Work Disability the period in which the injury temporarily prevents you from performing your usual tasks. Under section 7, as rewritten by section 10 of Law 27,348, that status ends for four reasons and no others: medical discharge, a declaration of Permanent Work Disability, the lapse of two years from the first disabling manifestation, or death. While it lasts, the first ten days are paid by your employer and the insurer pays thereafter, also covering medical benefits in kind (sec. 13, Law 24,557).

When the insurer's doctor signs the discharge, the official statement is that you are healed or that you have reached the maximum recovery possible. If you disagree, you are not required to accept that as final. The disagreement has a name of its own inside the system: the Medical Discharge Dispute, one of the grounds for filing before the medical boards set out in SRT Resolution 179/2015, as replaced by SRT Resolution 41/2022, alongside the Benefits Dispute, Readmission to Treatment, the Impairment Rating Dispute, Rejection of the Claim, Determination of Work Disability, Rejection of a Non-Listed Disease and Abandonment of Treatment.

The same resolution defines when it applies: where the discharge was granted after a period of Temporary Work Disability, and where the discharge was granted while deferring the permanent impairment rating to the end of treatment. There are three requirements: proof of identity, the accident or occupational disease report, and the discharge certificate issued by the insurer or the self-insured employer.

One practical point almost no guide mentions: the Medical Discharge Dispute may only be filed in person before the Jurisdictional Medical Board. It cannot be posted or filed through an online desk. Turning up with the file already assembled is therefore not a cosmetic suggestion.

2. Three separate proceedings people confuse

Not every discharge produces the same claim, and choosing the wrong ground delays the file, because the Board frames your request by the ground you declared, not by what you actually need.

First situation: discharge with no rating. The insurer closes treatment and says you are healed. Here the route is the Medical Discharge Dispute. You are not yet arguing about money: you are arguing whether treatment should have continued.

Second situation: discharge with a rating, including zero. If the insurer granted the discharge and stated that there are no disabling sequelae and you do not consent, or if after the discharge it failed to state whether any exist, or if it did not request a Board hearing to determine the resulting permanent impairment, the correct ground is the Impairment Rating Dispute. Here the subject matter is no longer only the continuation of treatment but the amount. If that is your case, see also the guide on what to do when the insurer discharges you with a zero rating.

Third situation: the injury comes back. The discharge is behind you and the condition reappears or worsens. The correct ground is not to reopen the old dispute but Readmission to Treatment, which applies where, five days after the discharge was granted, you request a return to treatment and the insurer refuses on stated grounds. That written refusal is the requirement: without it, the proceeding does not open. If yours is instead a discharge just granted too early, the route is the one described on the page about premature medical discharge.

3. Step by step before the Medical Board

1. Keep the signed discharge. If you are pressed to sign it, write by hand next to your signature that you disagree. That line is worth more than it looks.
2. Get your own medical certificate. A private doctor or an emergency room, dated close to the discharge, is the strongest evidence you will be able to bring. Pain without a certificate, six months later, is hard to sustain.
3. Retain counsel. Representation is mandatory under section 1 of Law 27,348, and the fees and other expenses are borne by the insurer, not by you.
4. Choose the Medical Board. You may file before the Board for your home address, the place where you actually worked, or the address where you habitually reported, at your option (sec. 1, Law 27,348).
5. File in person, with your ID, the accident report and the discharge certificate.
6. Attend the examinations the Board orders. All evidence is free for the worker, and the proceeding covers travel and complementary studies at no cost (sec. 2, Law 27,348; sec. 21(4), Law 24,557).
7. Wait for the opinion and, if impairment is recognised, the hearing before the Settlement Service. If you disagree with the rating, a record is drawn up and the appeal route opens.

4. The deadlines that are in the rules (and the ones that are not)

Figures circulate about this proceeding that appear in no legal text. These are the deadlines we can anchor in the rules:

• Sixty administrative business days for the Jurisdictional Medical Board to issue its decision, counted from the first properly completed filing (sec. 3, Law 27,348).
• Extension only for factual issues relating to proof of the accident or the occupational disease, duly substantiated. It is neither automatic nor discretionary.
• The deadlines are peremptory. Once they lapse, the appeal route under section 2 of Law 27,348 opens, and unjustified delay constitutes serious misconduct by those responsible.
• Five days after the discharge is the point from which readmission to treatment is requested; if the insurer refuses on stated grounds, that proceeding opens before the Board.
• From day twenty-one counted from the day after Temporary Work Disability ends, the Impairment Rating Dispute may be filed (SRT Resolution 179/2015, as replaced by SRT Resolution 41/2022).
• Five days from notice of the settlement approval for the insurer to make the award available to you (Annex I, sec. 4, Law 27,348). Not fifteen, as is still repeated in places.
• Two years is the limitation period for claims under Law 24,557, counted from when the benefit should have been paid or provided and, in any event, from the end of the employment relationship (sec. 44).

For the full timeline from the end of treatment to payment, see the guide on the deadline to file a medical discharge dispute with the SRT.

5. If they turn you down or stall

If the opinion goes against you, or if the sixty days lapse without a decision, section 2 of Law 27,348 opens two doors at your choice: seek review before the Central Medical Board, or appeal directly to the ordinary labor courts of the jurisdiction corresponding to the address of the Board that heard the case.

Appeals proceed with suspensive effect, with two exceptions the statute itself lists, which take devolutive effect only: where the insurer appeals to the Central Medical Board in the case under section 6(2)(c) of Law 24,557, and where the insurer appeals in the event of aggravation of the accident or the occupational disease. Your appeal also draws in any appeal the insurer files before the Central Medical Board, and the labor court judgment binds all parties.

Two further guarantees worth knowing: the court-appointed medical experts must belong to the forensic medical corps of the jurisdiction, and their fees may not be variable or tied to the amount in dispute. And contingency-fee agreements are prohibited in these proceedings.

Is it constitutional to make you go through the Medical Board first? The Supreme Court upheld it in "Pogonza v. Galeno ART S.A.", of 2 September 2021, on the ground that section 2 of the statute guarantees broad and sufficient administrative and judicial review. The practical consequence is direct: skipping the prior stage and going straight to court usually ends with the claim shelved for want of an exhausted administrative route.

6. Mistakes that delay or wreck the case

Frequently Asked Questions