06-18-2014, 10:01 PM
I've been concerned that I hurt myself at work, and I wanted to get it checked out. I felt like I had a muscle injury. To cover my bases, I reported it to my company's worker's compensation department, and they filed a claim and referred me to a local urgent care clinic for an exam.
I went in for the exam, but the doctor didn't think there was anything majorly wrong and gave me a vague diagnosis of muscle pain. Since I wasn't feeling too poorly at the time, I really hoped that it was that simple.
However, since then, my pain has changed and gotten worse, and at this point I'm not entirely sure what's going on. I don't want to dismiss the possibility of an injury, and if a doctor did find an injury, then I'm confident it's work-related. But the pain is odd and I'm worried that there could be something else causing it, or that there's new problem unrelated to the original one. I would like to see another doctor to get a more comprehensive exam to determine what's going on.
I'm not sure what to do at this point, or how I should be involving worker's comp. I'm worried that if I went to my own doctor and an injury was discovered, the worker's comp people would be unhappy with me for seeing a doctor that wasn't approved by them, and my personal health insurance might be unwilling to pay because of the probable work-relatedness. But I don't really want to go through the worker's comp people when I'm unsure about what's going on, and I'm worried that if I go to the doctor under the worker's comp claim, the doctor will focus on finding an injury and won't consider other possibilities, or that I won't be able to have tests done at my own expense/my insurance's expense if necessary. To further frustrate things, I've been trying to get in touch with the people overseeing my claim for a few days now, but have not had any luck. It's delaying me from being able to see a doctor, and I'm frustrated.
What should I do at this point? I don't want to jeopardize the claim prematurely, but I really don't want to risk my health by waiting too long. Thanks for any input you guys have.
I went in for the exam, but the doctor didn't think there was anything majorly wrong and gave me a vague diagnosis of muscle pain. Since I wasn't feeling too poorly at the time, I really hoped that it was that simple.
However, since then, my pain has changed and gotten worse, and at this point I'm not entirely sure what's going on. I don't want to dismiss the possibility of an injury, and if a doctor did find an injury, then I'm confident it's work-related. But the pain is odd and I'm worried that there could be something else causing it, or that there's new problem unrelated to the original one. I would like to see another doctor to get a more comprehensive exam to determine what's going on.
I'm not sure what to do at this point, or how I should be involving worker's comp. I'm worried that if I went to my own doctor and an injury was discovered, the worker's comp people would be unhappy with me for seeing a doctor that wasn't approved by them, and my personal health insurance might be unwilling to pay because of the probable work-relatedness. But I don't really want to go through the worker's comp people when I'm unsure about what's going on, and I'm worried that if I go to the doctor under the worker's comp claim, the doctor will focus on finding an injury and won't consider other possibilities, or that I won't be able to have tests done at my own expense/my insurance's expense if necessary. To further frustrate things, I've been trying to get in touch with the people overseeing my claim for a few days now, but have not had any luck. It's delaying me from being able to see a doctor, and I'm frustrated.
What should I do at this point? I don't want to jeopardize the claim prematurely, but I really don't want to risk my health by waiting too long. Thanks for any input you guys have.