Workers’ Compensation

By MikeDiazTheFirst
This post is part of a series called Thoughts and Ideas
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I fell at work. Accidents happen. I wish they didn’t, I really wish this one didn’t. There is a lot of background that I could go into, but I’m not sure how relevant any of it is. The short version is I was working a lot hoping to set myself up for a new opportunity. The day that opportunity fell through, I fell through the stage. There could be many metaphysical come physical parallels drawn. However not everyone believes in the notion. I will try to keep this as objective and strictly approved western medicine as I can. However this is my experience and therefore will be tainted by my thoughts, options and feelings. 

As soon as I landed I knew something was wrong. This did not feel like a simple bang, bruise or walk it off injury. They helped me up, helped me to a safe place, gave me ice and helped me fill out an accident report before I headed to the hospital. 

At the hospital, late at night (working nights) with no blood, it felt like everyone had little to no sympathy for me. Not that I wanted the ER staff to fawn over me, but it felt like they wanted me to just suck it up and walk it off. I waited almost two hours before the doctor saw me. He asked me what happened and why I was there. I explained how I fell, and more importantly that on impact it just felt bad. Not a bad pain, but that I knocked something out, or moved something to where it shouldn’t be. He said, you landed on your knee? This is a worker comp case? He gave me a knee immobilizer and told me not to take it off (aside for showering) till I see my GP. When I left he gave me some paper work and ushered me out the door. 

The next day I called my GP and asked to make an appointment. They asked why I needed the appointment. When I explained they asked me if I had the prescription for more X-rays or even seeing the GP. I said the ER doctor told me to wear the knee immobilizer till I saw my GP. They said, he said she said, they need a prescription for an appointment with a Workers’ Compensation case. I looked at the paperwork the hospital gave me when I left, and found no prescriptions. 

This was the beginning of the problems. I called the ER, they said I have to do what the doctor said. I can’t with out a prescription. I should have gotten one. Well I didn’t could I have one now? No, you can not get a prescription after you leave. I called Workers’ Compensation. They said I needed to get a prescription from the ER doctor. Just like that, I was caught in some weird red tape bureaucracy. I did not receive, or know to demand a prescription to continue care. I was now, as far as they are concerned cured. 

I spent a day or two making calls to doctors, the ER and Workers’ Compensation. Finally I complained about my situation to my mom. I clearly should have done that much earlier. I saw a part of my mom that had not seen before and it was kind of awesome. Such a nice lady called the workman’s comp office, but once they tried to put her in the same cycle of he said he said, she forcefully said NO. The air was sucked out of the room. I don’t really remember what or how she said it but finally the workman’s comp person agreed that the ER doctor wouldn’t just say you’re cured have this brace just because. 

When I finally got to see my GP, it was like Workers’ Compensation called to say watch out for this one. They refused to look at or talk about about anything except my knee. If you dropped your phone on the corner, the only thing that could be wrong with it would be the corner? It doesn’t even make sense. How can you say, you fell, landing on your knee, therefore the ONLY thing that could possibly be wrong with you is your knee? 

Now, I will freely admit, I probably wore the immobilizer for too long. Not because I liked it, or wanted to, but because the ER told me to wear it till I saw the GP and with all the rig-a-ma-roll that wasn’t so quick. This was probably as bad for my leg as my moral. I was worried, it did not feel right when I landed. I wanted to do the right thing. I listened to instructions. 

The GP looked at my knee and basically said it’s fine. The average person can move this much, you can move this much therefore you are fine. But my left knee moves more then “average”, and I have pain. Well, pain can not be documented and your right knee moves the average amount, so you’re fine. 

I kind of lost it a bit. 

I spent the next few months going to different specialists trying to figure out what was wrong. Some of these specialists were covered by the workman’s comp case, some were not. I really didn’t care about the money as much I needed to be heathy. However, the way doctors bills can add up I could not afford to go to every doctor that said they could have helped me. 

Workers’ Compensation has laid out what each injury is worth. If you get a scar on your arm it is worth less then a scar on your face. It makes sense to lay out things so everyone can see it on paper before anything actually happens. If the rules are written out for everyone, then no one can complain. … Well they shouldn’t.

So at some point in the past a group of people got together and decided that my leg should move this far. When it does, my leg must be fine. If my leg doesn’t move that far, or if I have “un-documentable” pain, then my leg is worth X. So they “allowed” me to go to doctors until I used up X amount of dollars. As soon as I hit that number they had me go to their doctor. 

This is where I really lost any faith in the system. I went to the doctor they said I needed to see. He asked me a few questions, quickly looked me over and literally said, “I see what’s wrong, it’s so easy to fix, so if you’re not getting better you either don’t want to get better, or you’re going to the wrong doctor.” I said, I am hurting and less mobile, I would love nothing more then to be “fixed”, please, tell me what to do. To which he responded, “I can not advise you since I am working for workman’s comp.” So I can not be healed because his job is to find the people cheating the system. But isn’t that the system being broken? All I ever wanted is to be healed.

Any system can be graphed out, and that graph usually has two extremes. In this discussion, there is some people who try to cheat the system on one side of the graph. But likewise there are some people on the other side of the graph who might use the system way less then they are eligible. It happens in any group, one portion uses more then their share, one portion uses less. It’s nature. 

The thing that I have a problem with is we, as a society is we spend 20% to make sure the 10% who take too much never becomes 11%. I am not saying that the 10% who uses too much is good, or even ok. However the shark does it’s thing in nature, people can judge but it doesn’t change much. Why are we as a society so worried that those who might take advantage of the situation that we’d implement rules that allow a doctor to hold the “cure” but say you don’t look like you want it so instead I’m going to go to court and say you are ready for work. 

I have continued to work towards making my leg better since. I will probably always have a propensity to have problems with that leg, but hopefully one day I won’t feel like it’s my “bad” leg. 

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MikeDiazTheFirst

Mike was born in Queen, New York to a blue collar family. An avid self educator, artist, and traveler he’s traveled around the globe three times while immersing himself in the culture of 48 different countries and counting.  Read about his journeys and musings here.

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