By Steven Babitsky, Esq. The court in, Rodriguez v. WORKERS' COMPENSATION APPEAL BOARD, PA: Commonwealth Court 2013, dealt with a claimant who fell at work and sustained a menisci tear in her right knee. The issue was whether the fall aggravated the degenerative condition in her knee. The court upheld [...]
Can statements made by a workers’ comp claimant to an IME physician be used to convict the claimant of workers’ comp fraud? The court in, Commonwealth v. Wilson, Mass: Appeals Court 2013, said yes. The court upheld the conviction for workers’ comp fraud based substantially on the misrepresentations by the [...]
If you are a board certified physician and are interested in obtaining additional income doing file reviews, it is quite simple to get started. Many of the major players are selecting physicians for this work from the SEAK Medical File Review Directory. Here is an example of an email one [...]
The March issue of Occup Med (London) includes the article, Predicting Return to Work Following Treatment of Chronic Pain Disorder. The results of the study found early intervention and referred the keys to success. Results of the injured workers who participated in the interdisciplinary CPD treatment programme, 1002 clients met [...]
The April issue of Jarthoplasty includes the story, Workers' Compensation Patients After Total Joint Arthroplasty: Do They Return to Work? The results of the study indicates that receipt of workers’ compensation may impact recovery. The results of the study were: Clinicians identify patients receiving Workers' Compensation (WC) as unlikely to [...]
Dr. Mike McLaughlin, an alumnus of SEAK’s Medical Fiction Writing for Physicians course, has recently completed a unique on-line reading experience titled The Satin Strangler Blogs under the pseudonym of N. Michael Caputo. Who was the Satin Strangler . . . and how many men did she seduce and [...]
The journal Work in its 2013 issue carries as important article, Biopsychosocial Determinants of Work Outcomes of Workers With Occupational Injuries Receiving Compensation: A Prospective Study. The results of the study were as follows: RESULTS: The variables under investigation were: age, gender, duration of symptoms, pain severity, disability, work importance, [...]
The March 2013 issue of the Journal of Rheumatology includes the article, A Medicolegal Analysis of Worker Appeals for Fibromyalgia as a Compensable Condition Following Workplace Soft-Tissue Injury. The cases studied were appeals for fibromyalgia after soft tissue injuries. RESULTS: All injuries were of a soft-tissue type, without persistent [...]
Physicians determine causation in workers’ compensation cases primarily based on excluding other potential causes. The Journal of Occupational Medicine (London) ran an interesting article, How Physicians Allocate Causation: A Scenario Study With Factorial Design. The results and conclusion of the study are as follows: RESULTS: The nature of the [...]
The April 2013 issue of Orthopedics has an important article entitled Predictors of Oswestry Disability Index Worsening After Lumbar Fusion. Smokers and obese surgical patients do not fare as well when undergoing lumbar fusion. The authors identified patients with an increase in their Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) score after lumbar [...]