Workmen's compensation acts have been described as a "mechanism for providing cash-wage benefits and medical care to victims of work-connected injuries." 1 Larson, Workmen's Compensation, s. 1.00. Carbonneau v. Company, 97 N.H. 438, 441; Bolduc v. Company, 97 N.H. 360, 365. These statutes create rights, remedies and procedures all their own.

Such extensions for prospective benefits may be granted by the Commissioner either within or after the expiration of the original ninety day period. Carbonneau v. Company, 97 N.H. 438. Provision for remedial care "was doubtless intended to preserve to the employee the benefit of compensation without substantial reduction for medical or hospital expense. The provision for extension of the . . . period . . . was calculated to further this purpose in appropriate cases.

It is suggested by the appellant that paragraph (c) cannot be relied upon here because the appellee made no application to the Board for services rendered after the thirty-day period. I must agree with this contention is so far as it applies to those services rendered prior to March 26. Pickens v. State Workmen's Insurance Fund, 140 Pa. Super. 258, 13 A.2d 896; Carbonneau v. United States Casualty Co., 97 N.H. 438, 91 A.2d 449. This part of the Act has prospective rather than retrospective effect. The Act clearly makes the application a prerequisite to the furnishing of additional service by the employer (unless, of course, he agrees to provide them).

Benefits paid under New Hampshire's Workers' Compensation Law are meant to compensate for loss of earning capacity. Those payments represent, or substitute for, future earnings that would have been available to an injured worker and his or her family, but for the workplace injury. See Carbonneau v. United States Casualty Co., 97 N.H. 438, 441, 91 A.2d 449 (1952). The term "compensation" as it is used in New Hampshire's law of course encompasses the actual money paid under its terms.

But, consistent with the remedial purpose of workers' compensation, we construe "award" in RSA 281-A:43, I(b) to include both medical benefits and indemnity payments. Cf. Carbonneau v. Company, 97 N.H. 438, 441, 91 A.2d 449, 451 (1952) (provision for remedial care was "intended to preserve to the employee the benefit of compensation without substantial reduction for medical or hospital expense"). RSA 281-A:43, I(b) clearly states that an appeal to the board does not suspend the obligation to pay an award unless the hearing officer so orders. Accordingly, a stay must be requested by the carrier or employer and granted by the hearing officer.

The master granted the plaintiff's request for a ruling that "medical extension may not be retroactive." Carbonneau v. Company, 97 N.H. 438. He denied another request to the effect that this issue is "completely separate from entitlement to compensation," and "involves a review of the Commissioner's action," presumably because the same request also called for a ruling that "there is no evidence to support that determination, since no discretion was exercised or reason given."

RSA 281:21 which pertains to medical and hospital care under our Workmen's Compensation Law provides that "During the first ninety days after an injury to an employee, an employer subject to this chapter, shall furnish to an injured employee, or cause to be furnished, free of charge, reasonable medical and hospital services . . . when needed . . . Such ninety day period may be extended from time to time at the discretion of the commissioner of labor upon written request of the injured employee to the commissioner of labor and after the employer has been given an opportunity to file objections thereto and to be heard thereon." We decided in Carbonneau v. Company, 97 N.H. 438, that such an extension may be granted after the expiration of the first ninety days following injury. We also held that upon a request for an extension made by the guardian of an employee who had been in a state of coma since his injury, this statute did not authorize the Commissioner to enter a retroactive order for the payment of care previously furnished to this employee.

We believe this position cannot be maintained, as it is inconsistent with the history and policies of the law and the tenor of our previous holdings. In Carbonneau v. Company, 97 N.H. 438, decided under c. 266, s. 19, supra, we stated at p. 441: "It is well settled that our compensation act is intended primarily to afford limited compensation (Mulhall v. Company, 80 N.H. 194, 199) to the injured employee for his loss of earning capacity. Peak v. Company, 87 N.H. 350, 352. Provision for remedial care for a limited period following an injury has long been a part of the statute.

The Legislature has been careful to specify only two causes which will deprive a husband of the right to inherit a share of his wife's property (RSA 560:18, 19) and the presumption is that no others were to be included. Moore v. Dailey, 97 N.H. 278, 279; Carbonneau v. Company, 97 N.H. 438, 443. Neither of the required causes exists here.

"Compensation acts have not been designed to place the entire burden of employees' losses upon industry . . . and the right of the workman is no greater than the Legislature has provided it shall be." Carbonneau v. Company, 97 N.H. 438, 443. Since the Legislature has not provided that every workman that is injured in his employment shall be compensated for his injury, the judiciary cannot accomplish the same result by decree. "Not every diseased person suffering a misfortune while at work . . . is entitled to compensation."