Evidence status: CURRENT STATUTORY WORKERS’ COMPENSATION COVERAGE REQUIREMENT. North Dakota Century Code §65-05-39 requires a treatment agreement for Workforce Safety & Insurance payment of chronic opioid therapy in covered workers’ compensation claims.
What counts as chronic opioid therapy
For this statute, chronic opioid therapy means opioid treatment extending beyond 90 days from initiation for pain resulting from a nonmalignant compensable condition or therapy for another nonterminal compensable condition.
The agreement requirement
To qualify for WSI payment, the prescriber must provide WSI a treatment agreement between the injured employee and prescriber. The agreement must restrict treatment access and limit opioid prescriptions to one identified single prescriber.
The statute allows temporary coverage within a single clinic by an identified prescriber when the prescriber of record is unavailable and does not prevent referral to a pain specialist.
This is a payment condition, not a universal North Dakota physician contract rule
Section 65-05-39 operates inside North Dakota’s workers’ compensation system. It determines when WSI will pay for chronic opioid therapy for an injured employee. It should not be generalized into a claim that every North Dakota chronic-pain patient must sign the same agreement.
Other statutory eligibility conditions
WSI payment also depends on the chronic opioid therapy producing increased function, enabling a return to work, or improving pain control without debilitating side effects. The injured employee must have been nonresponsive to non-opioid treatment, must not be using illegal substances or abusing alcohol, and must comply with the treatment protocol.
Primary sources
Reviewed: October 5, 2026.
Evidence boundary: This page describes a workers’ compensation coverage condition. It does not convert WSI coverage rules into a universal treatment condition for all North Dakota patients.