If you are injured at work and visit a doctor to have your injuries assessed, odds are you’ll leave that appointment with a treatment plan in place. But what happens if you disagree or have reservations about the type of treatment your physician is recommending?
If this was a normal injury that you suffered on your own time, you are well within your rights to follow or disregard any advice provided by a physician, but it’s not so simple if you are hoping to collect workers’ compensation for your injuries. In today’s blog, we explain what you should do if you have a valid workers’ compensation injury but are questioning your treatment recommendations.
Questioning Your Care Plan
Although they say that the doctor knows best, at the end of the day, it’s your body and you have the final say in the type of treatment you receive. With that said, your choices don’t free you from some possible consequences of your actions. For example, if you disagree with your physical therapist’s recommendations after a work injury and stop pursuing treatment, your employer’s workers’ compensation provider may be within their right to stop paying your injury claim. After all, from their perspective, they just see an injured worker failing to comply with a recovery plan. Don’t give them a valid reason to stop making payments on your claim.
If you want to continue receiving benefits but want other care plans considered, here’s what you need to do. For starters, you’ll want to seek out a second medical opinion from a reliable physician. If you’re unsure where to turn for care, ask your workers’ compensation attorney, as they will likely be familiar with some helpful and thorough physicians that they’ve worked with in the past. During this appointment, feel free to let them know what the other physician saw, their recommendations, and why you’re hoping to potentially treat the problem in a different manner.
The most common scenario we see is where the first doctor recommends a surgical procedure, and the worker is hesitant to move forward with an operation. They then seek out a second medical opinion, and if that doctor believes that a non-operative treatment plan could effectively treat the issue, then the worker would be within their rights to decline the first physician’s recommendations and pursue the conservative care plan put in place by the second physician. As long as you are following the documented advice of a medical professional, your decisions should not compromise the validity of your approved claim.
If the second physician sees the same thing as the first doctor, you may have a decision on your hands. Either you’ll need to follow their care recommendations or potentially forfeit your claim. If two doctors believe a specific care plan is the only way to achieve the best results, and you opt not to follow their advice, there’s a good chance the insurance company will reconsider making payments on your claim since you are going against recommended care advice.
Simply put, if you have concerns about your current treatment plan after a work injury, don’t just stop pursuing care. Talk with your lawyer and set up a second opinion with a trusted physician to see if you can move forward with an amended care plan. You have options and don’t always need to follow the advice of one specific doctor, but you need to proceed carefully so as not to jeopardize your approved injury claim. Our legal team can help ensure you move forward as needed so you continue getting the injury benefits and the preferred treatment of your choice.
For more information, or for help with a different aspect of an injury claim, reach out to Dean and the team at Margolis Law Firm today at (952) 230-2700.
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