Lower Back Pain – Potential Insurance Issues

Transcript

The problem with some of this is is that someone doing the deciding may not be well versed in this particular medical problem. They may be a lay person who’s occupied a desk at an insurance company and this is the sheet that tells them this is what everybody needs. Problem is with your healthcare that everybody fits in exactly the same slot. In other words, you and I look a lot different today and, gee, we may have totally different problems and presentations. I might come in and I might not be able to pull my foot up. I don’t want to go to physical therapy. I want to be in that operating room tomorrow. I don’t care about having steroids or shots. I want to just get out of there because I want my foot to work so that I can go hiking and not have any problems with that. The other side of the coin is is that sometimes people can go to surgery too soon. Certainly the rates of surgery in different countries is different and in the United States I want to be taken care of now. You may not want to be out six or eight weeks with a ruptured disc and see if it gets better. My, you know, my supervisor wants me back. I’ve got projects, I’ve got things to do. If I’m not at work, you know, that may have adverse financial effect on me. So we have to balance what’s the right thing from a medical standpoint, what’s the right thing from a financial standpoint.