Utilization

[tiredofpain]

sparkey Wrote:Boy that sounds so familiar except when my hand hurt i dropped a needle as I was a phlebotomist and told right away to fill out a wc form and they sent me right to their doctor within the hour. I was given pain meds and they set me up with their ortho doctor that i would see in 2 days time. I was took out of work till I saw him.

When i went to their ortho. he took a xray of my hand and grabbed my thumb just like yours and told me i had thumb arthritis. Put a thumb splint on me and sent me back to work to not use that hand. It was my dominant hand. I went in and tried to work and had so much pain that i ended up crying and was going to go home. They then sent me back to their doctor who took me out of work for a few weeks.



Thank u so much, I feel better about what I need to do. I will do whats best for me

I was then contacted by the IC workers comp. adjuster to find out what had happened and my HR dept. had to take 13 weeks of my pay and divide it and came up with a TTD payment. I received a payment from them for the first few weeks out of work.

I was then sent back to work with one hand and limitations. I worked 2 months straight and in the meantime got a splint/medication and told to go to PT/OT 4 x's a week for 7 months. I also had to go back to the idiot ortho doc and get a few cortizone injections into my thumb which did nothing. I was then sent to a neurologist who was confused by what may be going on and sent me for a EMG test. Then to a pain management doctor who ordered another EMG test as the first one they were not satisfied with. It came back with Mild carpal recurrance, but yet the PM doctor said it was tendonitis.

The pm doctor took me out of work due to "overuse syndrome" and put me on stronger meds as i was getting much more pain. I was out going to therapy and it did not work. Finally i went back to work with my employer finding a light duty job they made for me which was sitting watching the waiting room patients. I was working 4 hours a day and driving 3 hours a day. Finally I was offered a position at my husbands construction jobsite and I was then put at MMI.

I got so bad with my hand turning blue, hot, cold, numb and a rash only on that arm. I had 7 out of the 8 symptoms of RSD. PM refused to diagnose me with it and to this day i have had 4 or 5 diagnosis. I am currently working at a new job as i can no longer do my career of 15 yrs. I had my PIR rating of 19% whole body and the IC thought that was way to high. So i just went last week for a IME through the IC's lawyers doctor. I am currently waiting on the result. So I would say, if you do not have a lawyer, your case sounds like they owe you money and you should GET ONE. They owe you and even owe you for the mileage to the doctors visits. If getting medication you should have a medicine card that you use for your meds all paid for. Seems like you need to do alot of reading of your state and what you are entitled to and go after it.

You have already started out badly and being taken advantage of it seems. Good luck, and let us know how it goes.