Thank you for joining me again this evening for our nightly podcasts. It is my hope that you can take the tips and tricks in this podcast and use them to better educate yourself on making informed choices when it comes to your health care. I am doctor Harrison Campbell from Restoration Health a premier sugar land chiropractors office. In tonightís podcast we will be following up with our topic of workers compensation. We have done a general overview of the workers compensation process and covered common forms you as a patient need to be aware of. Tonight we will look more in depth at designated doctors examinations and if we have time impairment ratings.
Last night briefly mentioned doesnít need a doctors examinationës in regards to form a sixty nine. This doesnít need a doctors examination as an independent doctor examining first the documentation thatís already been done in the case by the treating doctor and then performing his own evaluation along with him writing a report based off of his findings. As sugar land chiropractors no different parties can request a designated doctor examination to be performed throughout the Workerís Compensation process. Typically the insurance company or insurance carrier via the adjuster handling your Workerís Compensation case will request one when they are disputing your case in general.
The disputes the insurance companies have with your case usually follow a pattern. At first they will dispute the injury in and of itís self saying that you were not hurt at work. Should that fail they will then move onto the injury not occurring in the way that you described in your incident report which is the Workerís Compensation form forty one. Should both of these fail their next course of action at Sugar land chiropractors perform Workerís Compensation can tell you a fall onto the injuries themselves and they will either dispute areas of complaint stating that those areas were not injured or by stating that your injuries of healed due to various reasons in their guidelines.
Now back to the designated doctor examination. Depending on who requested the designated doctor examination or largely determine the outcome of the examination. As we stated earlier the insurance company or carrier via the adjuster handling your case can request one but we did not say is that the treating doctor can also request this designated doctor examination. I am Restoration Health at Premier sugar land chiropractors office what we have found is that more of the night when insurance company request the designated doctor examination they have one of their company doctors perform examination. What this usually means is that this doctor due to him working for the insurance company typically Will undermine your symptoms and trying to get you back to work as quickly as possible regardless of whether or not that is actually beneficial to your health. No this is it always the case as I said this is just more often than not. Recently I had a case for the insurance company requested a designated doctor examination of a patient where the doctor did his duty performed the examination that he needed to perform and provide an accurate assessment of the situation at hand. However In the past I had patients who have had bilateral pars fracture is in her low back has demonstrated on x-ray and MRI imaging and their designated doctor cleared him from work stating and there was it no problem whatsoever.
No typically when sugar land chiropractors request a designated doctors examination we use doctors that we know more accurately describe and accurately represent the situation at hand in regards to the patientís symptoms and where they are red in their care. In addition we can also request a secondary opinion in regards to the designated doctor examination should we disagree with the previous report that was provided.
This means that you can trust Restoration Health when it comes towards doing what we need to do in order to provide the care that is required to get you better. Therefore should you or someone you know we dealing with a Workerís Compensation case please give Restoration Health a premier Sugar land chiropractors office a call today in order to schedule an appointment.
Now thereís a little time left so we will briefly cover impairment ratings but more than likely will have to dive deeper into this topic a future podcast. Impairment ratings are done at the very end of a Workerís Compensation case. They are similar to a designated doctors examination in that they are used to determine a patience maximum medical improvement but they differ in that the patient is a signed an impairment rating which is a percentage of disability. The reason this percentage is important Is that each percentage point corresponds to three weeks of temporary income benefits also known as tibs. Now similar to the designated doctors examination both the insurance carrier and sugar land chiropractors can request this impairment rating to be done. They can also request a second hearing impairment rating be done sure they disagree with the primary impairment rating findings or the percentage. Should the treating doctor agree with the impairment rating they can sign the form and sent it to the proper people to ensure your workers compensation case can move forward.
One point which we have not discussed is attendance. Your attendance at either or both the designated doctors examination or the impairment rating is required and is labeled as mandatory. You cannot skip or miss these appointments without consequences. Therefore just like your therapy view these appointments as part of your job.
Thank you again for joining us for these nightly podcasts. I do hope you have been enjoying this information on workers compensation. Should you or someone you know require a doctor for workers compensation please contact Restoration Health a premier sugar land chiropractors office to schedule an appointment today. Thank you once again for joining us, I hope to see you tomorrow for another podcast. Have a good night.