Soft Tissue Injury | Part II

You must show that your injury was significant!

If you have a soft tissue injury claim and do not have a primary care physician, then look up one up on the phone book so you can be referred to a chiropractor or a physical therapist.

They will make the necessary exams to find out what is wrong with you. If you went to the emergency room, it is very likely that they take x-rays of your soft tissue injury at that time.

If they did not, then the M.D. would probably order that. This is important because it will reveal if you have a permanent injury and it will show that the injury is severe enough to have a doctor order x-rays.

Before you leave your doctor’s office (or the emergency room), you need to ask for a release of work note whether you need it or no. The doctor usually will give you 1-3 days off work. Again, this shows the seriousness of the injury to any adjuster. If anything, it shows that you are in pain and cannot work.

If you go back to work the day of or the day after the accident, then you are basically saying that you are ok, or at least feeling well enough to head to your work place. This can back fire on you later on. Remember that you are entitled to loss wages, so the loss wages that you have will be compensated at the time of settlement.

It is very easy to ask for a release of work form when you are visiting the doctor. It is not very easy to call make a second appointment to simply ask for a release.

If you forget to ask and your doctor does no give you a release, then you need to call your supervisor at work and tell them that you cannot come in due to the accident. Your supervisor will probably log in your absence.

These steps might seem like you are taking advantage of the situation, but in reality this is one of the only ways to secure your soft tissue injury claim.

Insurance companies will call and offer you $50 for your pain if you do not follow the steps above. If insurance carriers would believe that you were in pain, we would not have to go trough all these steps. But they do not; they believe that everyone is out there to take advantage of them (ironic, insurance carrier take advantage of injured people).

It is true that some or maybe a lot of people are trying to take advantage of an already bad situation, but most honest working people just want to be fairly compensated. $50 to $150 for pain and suffering, a soft tissue injury, and a release of all bodily injury claims is offensive.

The first medical visit and their medical evaluation will be critical to your case. However, you need to be in some kind of on going treatment. First, you need to be visiting a chiropractor.

Depending on how hard was the impact, you need to start seeing them 3 times per week, reduce treatment to 2 times per week, then once a week, and later every other week.

Basically, the adjuster will want to see that the treatment is helping you. If you are going in for treatments, they should help (that is the presumption). If the treatment does not help, then you need to try something else. Remember, they key to soft tissue injury claims is REASONABLE treatment.

It is a good idea to seek physical therapy and also have a treatment schedule that decreases over time. If this does not work, go back and talk to your Primary Care Physician and see if he can refer you to a neurologist.

The claim adjuster will be looking to see when your doctor or you tell them that the soft tissue injury is back to pre accident condition.

If the adjuster finds out that this is the case, then further treatment will not be reasonable and necessary (they will not cover this), and after this point the insurance adjuster will not add anymore value to your claim.

Remember that if your doctor says that you are back to pre accident condition, but then tells you to continue doing in home exercises, then you are NOT at pre accident condition. Always look to see if you were release to in home exercise programs, this could be a great piece of evidence that will benefit your case.

Read Soft Tissue Injury Part I

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