Workman's Compensation Services
The Epidemic of Disability and Low Back Pain
The Mid-South struggles with an epidemic of disability claims
by workers. U.S. employers incurred more than $60 billion in direct
workers’ compensation costs in 1992. When factoring in the cost
due to lost productivity, cost for a year due to injury claims
is estimated to be $350 billion. Because low back injury represents
a substantial portion of total disability claims, expert management
for the provision of care to these patients represents an opportunity
for significant savings.
The Parker Pain & Rehab Center uses a Time Contingent approach
to the treatment of the injured low back pain patient. As a result,
patients are treated in an efficient timely fashion to provide
the earliest opportunity to return to work.
The graph below illustrates the relationship between time off
work and the percentage of workers who return to work. It emphasizes
the importance of early intervention to maximize the potential
for return to work.
The Parker Pain & Rehab Center is capable of managing low back
pain patients at any point during their clinical course, however,
two points of contact represent effective utilization of the Center
when acute care treatment is not feasible.
4 to 6 weeks:
Allowing a few weeks of conservative treatments gives the majority
of patients an opportunity to recover with minimal intervention.
The role of the center is to diagnose the reason for failure or
stagnation in conservative therapy. Patients, in most cases, are
given an anatomically specific diagnosis by a prudent use of resources
to treat or triage the patient to appropriate surgical or nonsurgical
specialists if necessary.
18 to 24 weeks:
Patients unresponsive at this point have a diminished chance for
significant recovery in the near future. The focus of the center
is to find missed or undiagnosed etiologies of chronic back pain
through a comprehensive reevaluation. In the event a diagnosis
is found, the appropriate therapy will be recommended. If no diagnosis
can be determined, efforts will be made to bring the patient to
MMI for case resolution.
