Recently Michelle Meigan, workers compensation lawyer at Taylor & Scott, acted for a leading hand carpenter. Her client suffered a serious injury to his back in a fall at work. He was required to gain access to a part of the job by standing on a retaining wall and whilst doing this he lost his balance and fell, striking his back on the wall.
Over the ensuing months, his back got progressively worse. He tried physiotherapy, hydrotherapy, osteopathy, exercises and deep massage. He attempted to return to work on light duties even though he was in a lot of pain and had numbness down his legs to his feet. His doctor referred him to a neurosurgeon who ordered conservative treatment including injections into his back. Eventually, his employer sacked him and his specialist then recommended surgery. Initially, the surgery helped the numbness in his legs but the pain in his back was unrelenting. His specialist then advised he needed further surgery but the insurance company rejected this and sent him off to a doctor of their choosing who predictably said that surgery wouldn’t help.
By this stage, our client was very depressed, upset and felt his situation was hopeless. His specialist then sent him off to a Professor who also opined that he required further surgery. Still, the insurance company wouldn’t budge.
Our client then approached Michelle at Taylor & Scott and she took on the case. Armed with the expert opinions from our client’s doctors, Michelle commenced proceedings in the Workers Compensation Commission seeking orders to force the insurance company to pay for the spinal surgery. Eventually, after much argument, the insurance company relented and have now agreed to meet the full costs of the operation.
Commenting on the case Michelle stated that often an insurer will baulk at expensive surgery even though a worker may be desperate, in terrible pain and needing to take large amounts of pain medication just to get through the day.
“Fortunately, I was able to obtain very good support from a number of expert medical practitioners who supported the need for surgery and eventually the insurance company was forced to agree to pay for this. At least now our client has some hope of ridding himself of the terrible pain he has been suffering” Michelle stated.
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