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tshadow · 02-07-2008, 10:48 AM

I've been talking to TOSers who are just out of their head with how long their work comp, personal injury, social security, etc. cases are taking to get closed. They fear they can't wear out the storm. The are worried they are losing everything. They question if their cases even have merit. If they were worth fighting for. They look up at the stars and scream, "why me?"

It's NOT YOU. It's an ugly, evil system, and you MUST overcome. You MUST hang in there for whoever. And if you don't have kids or a spouse or a pet to hang in there for, then hang in for the rest of us here, because we'd be heartbroken if we lost on of our own.

In my past experience, there were loads of ten year cases. These were considered the biggies, the life - ies, but they were not completely unusual.

The reason for them was the complexity of the case and also the truth that most of these cases did not have an easy treatment and cure.

Did you know that the usual work comp case went like this:

receptionist slams hand in drawer. She sees attorney ad on t.v. and goes with the regular work comp mill attorney. Not bad, but just doesn't give her case ANY time. The attorney's staff then chooses a bad hand doctor and applicant has a bad hand surgery with returning pain. She returns to work - but very angry. So before I pay unreasonable PD, I do deposition, and despite her eyes expressing every kind of hatred known to man to me, we beging to all see that some easily curable mistake were made, and we all talk together, including sometimes the flunkey attorney that the t.v. attorney sent to work in his place, and we all agree that her health is everyone's #1 priority, and so we agree to send her to a GREAT hand ortho doc with new surgery needs (a repair of the old surgery), she goes off of work with TTD again, does the surgery and follows all rules, then we have our docs examine her again, and her results are almost normal, but she does get some PD, and we get her back her same job and she's on her way, feeling happy that she finally was treated well and fairly and with the dignity she deserved in the first place.

Now that can happen whether a case is open and closed within 6 months or 6 years - the key is what the applicant's body needs, and the time needs to recuperation after each treatment.

But in many of our cases, we are ready for treatment, but what's happening since the last last change of law (of allowing the Utilization Reviews to take much, much longer to unilaterally review a surgical procedure) we start to fall behind on the time-line, and what was expected for a typical bilateral knee, or bilateral upperextremity case is no longer true.

So if we get on appeal some older judge who see some of these terrible long time frames, by bigget fear is that he will put that long time frame upon me, that I am "dragging my feet and the system" unfairly!!

Not to mention that people were not meant to sustain these type of long waits - in fact, in enacting the entire work comp field, it was to avoid one applicant suing his one company for one negiligent work station, that could take years to decide BEFORE the applicant could get medical care. See, the state WANTED that applicant to get that medical care in a faster and ebbreviated way. And now, the insurance industry lobbyest's have the situation right back where they wanted it in the first place, WITHOUT the applicant's ability to sue for punitive damages. (One of the first benefits of straight-out filing suit that applicants' had to give up for faster medical care.)

So, as I write this ever couple of years, and to myself, frankly, DO NOT GIVE UP AND LEAVE OR KILL YOURSELF. This may seem so dramatic - Oh, Tamara, do not say that "s" word, PLEASE! But did you know that it is truly what they banter about up state in the insurance co.s over coffee? "When will that barnacle "Mr. x" get off of my back and just kick over?" I've heard the rather cruel and unbeliebable crass statements that used to be made...not so much, since they never could figure out whose side I was on...it used to drive them mad, is she one of us...or one of them, put in by the Feds? I had to laugh, since I was just a mom, trying to make a living.