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In it’s simplest form it’s what it sounds like: someone who attends to, or pays attention to, you. When you’ve got the flu it’s good to have someone who will check on you, get you some medicine, and bring you something to drink when you want it. That’s what loved ones do. Now say you had a total knee replacement and cannot walk or stand for any meaningful length of time. And throw into the set of facts that you are single and live alone. You need someone to take care of you. There is no way your are going to heal if you are having to abuse yourself taking care of your every day activities. The adjuster needs to pay for attendant care. It’s part of getting you better just like therapy, medications, and surgery.

Let’s take this scenario a step further. Everything is the same except that you are married. What’s the adjuster going to do? In at least 99% of the thousands of cases we’ve handled the adjuster expects your spouse to take care of you. If that means he or she takes time off of work without pay or uses up vacation or Family Medical Leave Act time the adjuster doesn’t really mind. We think this is wrong. Just because you have family who loves you doesn’t mean the insurance company shouldn’t pay for your medical care.

Largely through the efforts of one insurance company – after losing a case in the Court of Appeals about attendant care – the 2011 laws placed strict regulations on attendant care. We’ve become adept at making sure our clients are in compliance with these new (and in our opinion unnecessary) rules. The key thing is that your doctor needs to document the need specifically, for a limited period of time, in advance of the surgery. If things are done correctly your loved one will be compensated for the services he or she provides. Keep in mind, though, that the compensation rate is what a home health aide would get paid – usually about $10.00 – even if that’s less than what your spouse makes on their job. Every little bit helps though.

Wikipedia gives as good a definition as any: Pain management is a branch of medicine employing an interdisciplinary approach for easing the suffering and improving the quality of live of those living with pain. That’s well and good but what does it mean in the context of workers’ compensation?

We usually see pain management coming when a surgeon is done with you but you still have problems functioning and with pain. The surgeon may see his role as ending after the operation. It is up to a different specialty to handle the long-term results and recovery from this. While that could seem like the surgeon is just handing you off to someone else it’s not that simple and it’s not that callous.

In a deposition we took a prominent pain management doctor testifies that 80% of patients with chronic pain (that is defined as pain which last for six months or more) will develop clinical depression. Our bodies are not designed to put up with pain for that long. As much as we all want to see people get 100% better sometimes that doesn’t happen. People learn to live with pain. They do this sometimes with medications, sometimes with therapy and exercise, sometimes with counseling, and often with a combination of all that. Truthfully, managing all this is a skill set completely different than performing surgery.

Clients shouldn’t feel neglected or abandoned when their surgeons refer them to pain management. What we do see happen, though, is that pain management specialists can seem to exhibit a certain sense of prejudice. A lot of injured workers have reported that their pain doctors view them skeptically. It’s almost as if it’s ok to be in pain management if you have cancer but if you are there after a failed back surgery you should buck up and stop your whining and nothing cures like some tough love or a kick in the butt. If true such an approach is reprehensible in our minds.

Our best advice to clients in this predicament is to avoid playing into stereotypes and prejudices. As we’ve said repeatedly it is important to retain your credibility with your doctor. That means you’re complaints and self-assessments should be accurate, clear, and not exaggerated. It’s important to note that we’ve seen plenty of medical records with references to “non-organic pain” or “non-physiological pain” and “symptom magnification.” Many of these doctors are clued in for evidence that you are not being accurate or honest. When it comes to an issue like pain, which cannot be measured with a thermometer or an MRI, you word has to be 100% solid.

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