Jodi Ginsberg

Video Surveillance Most Likely being Used in Your Case

January 27, 2013 by Jodi Ginsberg

Back in March, 2011, I released a video on YouTube called Beware of Insurance Company Surveillance. In that video, which you can view here, I pointed out that workers compensation insurance companies and defense lawyers here in Georgia often use private investigators to follow injured workers for the purpose of catching them engaging in activities inconsistent with their doctors' s restrictions. I pointed out that I always tell my clients to assume that their are being surveilled and to follow their doctor's advice to the letter, even if my client is having a good day or needs to lift or climb "only once." If the insurance company happens to be filming that day, then that "only once" activity may sink my client's case.

Following my release of this video about surveillance, I received several somewhat hostile and accusatory comments suggesting that I was advocating workers' compensation fraud or that my discussion of surveillance somehope proved that most or all workers' compensation claimants were dishonest. These comments missed the mark completely.

Doctor Deposition Testimony – Very Powerful Evidence to Help You Win

January 24, 2013 by Jodi Ginsberg

One of the areas where I can greatly enhance the value of your case has to do with depositions I take of the doctors who treat you for a work injury.

If you have read through my web sites and viewed my video on this topic, you know how much importance I place on pushing the insurance company to provide quality medical care. I am especially concerned about treatment provided by posted panel doctors because physicians who get most of their business from insurance companies may bring financial motivations into their treatment plans for you.

What often happens, therefore, is that many cases contain conflicting medical reports. The posted panel doctor may write that your back pain arises from a muscle strain and that your MRI report was inconclusive. A report from your claimant’s IME doc may identify a disc herniation and need for an (expensive) surgical consult.

Workers’ compensation judges, therefore are left with the task of trying to figure out from medical records and attorney produced forms what medical treatment is appropriate or just how severe an injury you have suffered.

Beware of Insurance Company Surveillance

December 5, 2012 by Jodi Ginsberg

If you are like me, it is really creepy to think that someone may be following you around, taking photographs and videotaping your activities without your knowledge or consent. Perhaps you are one of those people who senses that someone is looking at you and you may think that you are losing you mind when you catch glimpses in your peripheral vision of someone that you just know you have seen before somewhere.

Welcome to life when you enter the workers’ compensation world. More and more, I am finding that my clients are being surveilled by private detectives hired by insurance companies. My colleagues in the claimant’s bar are reporting the same thing so I think that there is a concerted effort by insurance companies to manufacture evidence that can be used to deny claims. [Read more…] about Beware of Insurance Company Surveillance

Bogus Independent Medical Exam Requested by Insurance Company Puts Benefits at Risk

December 3, 2012 by Jodi Ginsberg

I received this question from one of my blog readers. The situation this person describes is, unfortunately, quite common:

I was injured at work over 7 months ago. I went to iworks and then went to my doc, Both docs have me on restrictions and 2 months ago the company had me go see another doc of there choice , with no records or anything he seen me for maybe 15 mins and sent a report saying i can go back to work.. So now my work informs me that even though Iworks and my back specialist says restrictions that I have to return to work back on the floor and ignore the restrictions. Iworks even says no patient transfers but my work says they don't care about Iworks i have to go back to my CNA job. So now what do i do?

Here are my thoughts: I am assuming by what you have written that you do not have a lawyer. It may be that the insurance company accepted your claim and paid temporary total disabiltiy benefits initially, which might have made you think that you did not need legal help. Setting aside the question of whether anyone with a serious injury should proceed without counsel, I think that the insurance company's decision to send you to one of their doctors should have been a red flag.

Insurance companies send you to so-called "independent medical examinations" so they can get evidence which they can use to cut you off. Obviously, the IME doctor's 15 minute exam without review of other records was not intended to do anything but cut you off, and while not every IME is this bogus, many are.

An experienced lawyer would most likely have recognized the IME doctor as a bought and paid for shill for the insurance company and would have argued for a more fair medical provider. At the same time, your lawyer would seek documentation from your treating physicians that their restrictions are valid. As soon as the return to work notice was issued your lawyer would have requested a hearing and, if you are in Georgia, could have used the claimant's IME to gather additional evidence to support your claim of disability.

Numbness or Tingling in Your Arms or Legs? You May have a Neurological Injury

November 27, 2012 by Jodi Ginsberg

If there is a neurological component to your neck or back injury, time becomes your worst enemy, says neurosurgeon Thomas Morrison of Peachtree Neurosurgery, P.C. in an article published on the georgia1st.com web site.

Neurosurgeons like Dr. Morrison recognize nerve involvement in an injury when a patient experiences numbness, tingling, burning or muscle weakness. When the nerve becomes inflamed, pain may radiate down from the nerve root into your extremities.

Neurological injury to the cervical (neck area) spine, may cause radiating pain into the shoulders and arms
Neurological injury to the lumbar spine may cause radiating pain into the buttocks, thighs, legs or even the feet
Numbness in the genital region can be an indicator of a very serious neurological condition that can result in bladder or urinary incontinence or sexual dysfunction

Nerve involvement in a spinal injury must be treated quickly because nerves do not regenerate like muscles, and the pain can be intense. If you have ever experienced sciatica (nerve pain running down you legs), you know how debilitating nerve pain can be. In the workers’ compensation world, insurance companies are notorious for turning a treatable neurological injury into a permanent, lifelong impairment by delaying treatment.

In my view, delaying treatment for a neurological injury is counterproductive because it will result in a longer recovery and decreases the odds that a injured claimant will return to work. However, many insurance adjusters open their claims files with the assumption that the injured worker is faking or malingering, so delayed treatment is quite common.

Jodi Ginsberg

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