Question about workers comp.

[mistreated]

I had rotator cup repair in Nov07 and was back at work (with a sling) in 3 days. I happen to have a job that I could work with a sling. I went to PT for my lunch. Was out of the sling in around 3 weeks. It gets tender sometimes, if I do something I shouldn't but all in all it is better than when the it was torn.

[Alice i]

Well thanks to the incompetent Orthopedic doctor I was seeing it has already been nine months since the injury. It took the last doctor four months to send in the request for an MRI. I contacted the contact person at the workers comp insurance company and she was very nice. She told me that the request for approval for the MRI was taken care of in two weeks after they received it. Of course the first doctor I was dealing with said and I quote "I'm not impressed with your injury." I am now seeing a very good ortho and I will ask about the repercussions of waiting before I decide to put it off.
Unfortunately my job is not something that will allow me to work with a sling. I am an X-Ray tech and I work the night shift. I have no help at all. I have to transport all of my own patients to and from the X-Ray department and move them on and off the tables alone and some of my patients are very hard to move.
In the over night shift I deal mostly with the elderly and infirmed, the developmentally disabled, the drunks and being that my hospital is the only psych hospital in the 315 area code we also get all the psych patients.
This new doctor wants to do my carpal tunnel at the same time which makes perfect sense to me because then I won't have to take even more time off from work for that surgery some time down the line so I really will be totally incapacitated for a while afterwards.

Thanks for all the good advice and the information.
Alice I

[sparkey]

I would say if it is approved and you deny it, you may have a difficult time later. Not to mention like the rest said about having permanent damage. Why would you want to deny surgery when it is NEEDED? I have been fighting for over a year now to get my recurring carpal tunnel surgery done, but doctors keep thinking it is more than that and beating around the bush.

Now that the IC doctor that did the IME said it was recurring carpal tunnel, maybe I can get it done now. Just waiting on a ortho surgeon to see me and go over my EMG results again. Hopefully it will be a matter of time. I noticed the longer it is put off, the more nerve damage I am getting and the pain has traveled up to my shoulder and even into the back of my ear at times.

If approved , I would go for it. Just my own opinion again. If you keep lifting patients and working all them hours, you are going to hurt yourself even more than you are now and recovery time will probably be longer if you wait.