Unveiling Hidden Post-Accident Care Pitfalls

Words From Your Woolston Chiropractor

I recently started on a PI case where the patient, not knowing any better, went to physical therapy after her crash and had a 50% improvement after 60 days. She’s happy but knows she is still hurt and something is not right.

In those 60 days, she has had no imaging. No x-rays, MRI, or CT. No referral to any other medical specialist. As a chiropractic professional from Woolston Wellness Center, P.C. I am shocked but not surprised as I assume a lot of car crash victims go to their MD or a PT after a crash. A surefire way to mess up a case and allow the insurance company to get off-paying minimums.

She feels confident that the insurance company will handle her case responsibly and she will be compensated accordingly. She is not interested in legal representation. I often have to identify all of the patient’s injuries before they consider an attorney.

After a thorough consultation, examination and x-rays. We do in-house spinal ligament assessments with flexion/extension films and I find a ligament tear that corresponds with her symptoms and my neurological exam. I proceed to explain that I fully expect to see a bulge or herniation at the level of the tear or above or below it. 

I explained that we use the American Medical Association’s Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment software for my x-ray analysis and stressed the importance of documenting all her injuries to make sure she is made whole again physically.

We have done thousands of these assessments. According to the AMA’s Guides, a spinal ligament tear, spinal ligament instability, or AOMSI(Alteration of Motion Segment Integrity) is equal in whole-person impairment as a fracture and a herniated disc. 

I will be able to connect her mechanism of injury with the specific level and extent of the spinal injury. We will document concomitant muscle and nerve injury patterns through ICD-10 S codes, not M codes. Then proceed to refer to the appropriate medical specialist.

Whereas the normal notes and codes I get from Emergency Departments, General Practitioners, and Physical Therapists are as if the patient is a Medicare patient, not a patient that just suffered trauma.

I wonder how many people like this patient see the wrong people for her medical care and don’t get an attorney? 

Attorneys, is this something you see? Where a patient goes to their MD or PT and this is sufficient for the case? 

Attorneys, would you take this case? No real gap in care, just poor judgment on who to trust with her care.

Bottom line if she came to me first, or any qualified Chiropractor in personal injury, she would have known the extent of her injury immediately and not just try to exercise her undocumented injuries to health.