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Is X-Ray Important Today?

Is X-Ray Important Today?

Is X-Ray Important Today?

My journey into the spinal injury market came from frustrations I experienced as a practicing chiropractor. So, I have a real passion and dedication to chiropractors who wish to become masters of spinal ligament injuries.

Recently I’ve noticed a disturbing trend, the movement away from routine use of x-rays. From my viewpoint and experience as an injury provider and an injury trainer, I believe this is a big mistake.

The number one cause of chronic pain and disability in the world today is a ligament injury.

These ligament injuries cause spinal instability. The only way you can effectively and objectively evaluate spinal instability is through stress radiography. Let me remind you that a spinal instability is simply the inability of the spine to maintain alignment under load. To evaluate it, you must load the spine to see if it is able to maintain proper alignment.

Now, when it misaligns under stress, this misalignment causes excessive translation and angular patterns that can be picked up on the spine. This makes it extremely easy to determine the severity and location of a ligament injury.

It’s quite easy to identify clinically through motor testing, sensor testing, or a pain evaluation correlation if that excessive motion is causing the problem. If we determine that it’s that level that is causing the motor, sensory, or pain problem we know that we have a spinal instability.

Just like we talk about all the time, this is crucial. Spinal instabilities are the number one cause of chronic pain. The number one cause. Let that sink in for a moment and you will begin to realize the severity and potential of the injury market for those that understand what is going on.

Spinal instabilities are the leading physical cause of low back problems. The fourth leading physical cause of neck problems and the sixth leading cause of chronic headaches.

I was taught a long time ago, to not see is to not know.

You must be able to see the spine to know what is going on with the spine. It’s virtually impossible to evaluate the integrity of the spine and know what you’re dealing with unless you can see. For doctors to say that x-ray evaluation is not important is problematic.

Most people who show up at a chiropractor’s office are coming in because of pain. The x-ray is the best diagnostic tool we have available. By no means are we talking about the overuse of x-ray. We do not want to order x-rays for the heck of it or because we do not know what else to do.

This misguided movement away from x-rays has led to such confusion in the United States, that today top researchers and guidelines openly admit that 9 out of 10 chronic pain patients and injury patients do not have a specific anatomical derangement pattern identified.

In today’s injury market the number one diagnosis for lower back issues is labeled as non-specific mechanical low back pain.

This means that doctors understand that something mechanical is causing the pain but are unable to identify what that “something” is. That’s no good for anyone in today’s injury market, to not know what the cause of something is. These non-specific diagnoses are the number one diagnosis for not just the lower back, but also the neck. Without being specific these diagnoses do not contribute to effective, systematic treatment plans.

If you wan to arrive at a specific diagnosis, then you are going to need to get into x-ray evaluations. As a doctor, I personally do not see any way to determine which misalignment or how badly the spin is misaligning without the use of x-ray. X-ray properly used is the number one tool for understanding injuries and understanding what could be triggering their chronic pain.

With ligament injuries, time is everything.

If you’re an injury patient or you treat patients with a spinal injury time is critical because of how the body reacts to the injury. It doesn’t matter how the injury happened; these patients could’ve been injured:

·        at work;

·        in an auto accident;

·        playing a sport;

·        or simply from a misstep at home.

No matter the cause, these injured patients need to get to a qualified provider as soon as possible.

Think about someone injured on the job. The longer that patient goes without seeking care and receiving effective treatment, the longer they are out of action and the higher the claim costs. This delay also leads to a higher risk of long-term residual complaints, that’s why patients with ligament conditions need doctors who understand how to assess these conditions.

Today, we need more doctors who understand how to great x-ray evaluations.

There is a specific type of x-ray that is showing a lot of promise to making these evaluations even easier. Digital motion x-ray or DMX is a more advanced form of x-ray. The only problem with it is that there is minimal access to them. In the entire United States, there are only 200 units, maybe 300, up and running.

So, we need great doctors who can make an evaluation based on conventional x-ray. Virtually anybody can get access to these x-rays.

We need to be able to actually have an injured patient go to the doctor, get those x-rays, and then have an excessive motion test. This helps a qualified doctor understand how much excessive motion the patient has. Now the doctor can clinically correlate either a motor, a sensory, or a pain problem at that level. When this occurs, we have a doctor that knows what the underlying problem is that is causing the problem.

An orthopedist may shut off the pain right away using a nerve block.

Now to take it a step further, most patients get to the doctor. If the doctor understands the underlying condition, they often can treat it conservatively just fine. We have a tool available known as the nerve block. When a patient needs to have pain shut off right away, they may end up under an orthopedist’s care who performs a nerve block to give relief.

The interesting thing for us, is that nerve block positively identifies which nerve is causing the problem. When an orthopedist or pain management goes in and anesthetizes a nerve and the pain goes away, that’s the ultimate objective diagnosis of where the problem is coming from.

Excessive motion can irritate the nerves and cause the motor, sensory, or pain problem. Now, if it’s a spinal instability causing this excessive motion a patient still needs a provider who really understands how to treat the condition even after the pain is shut off with an injection.

Often the pain will return, so we need a doctor who can deal with the long-term well-being of the patient. That’s what the whole SmartInjury® Program is about, producing doctors who understand the problem’s cause and can effectively treat injured patients.

X-ray is still the most important tool for back and neck conditions.

We should always remember that the x-ray is still the best diagnostic tool we have available.

Why?

Because, it’s not okay for everyone to walk around in today’s injury market with all this chronic pain and be working with doctors who cannot tell you what exactly is causing it.

The SmartInjury® Doctor can perform an evaluation of spinal instability routinely using universally available x-rays and an excessive motion study. These are the doctors that employers, insurers, attorneys, and injured patients should be dealing with. That’s what I am creating today with our program, a supply of providers who can shift the injury market from misunderstanding and ineffective treatment to effective diagnoses and care that gives patients relief from debilitating chronic pain.

For more information on Spinal Ligament Injuries please check us out at www.smartinjurydoctor.com or check out our SmartInjuryDoctors® Podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Stitcher.

For information on spinal ligament testing by board certified medical radiologists go to www.thespinalkinetics.com

 

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246 Tierney Drive, Suite 1,
New Richmond, WI 54017

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701 Richards Ave
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[email protected]
Call Lee Ann at 1-800-940-6513, ext 700

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© 2019 Biocybernetics Inc.

What Is A Smart Injury Lawyer?

What Is A Smart Injury Lawyer?

What Is A Smart Injury Lawyer?

Welcome to today’s program. Today what we’re going to be talking about is what is a smart injury lawyer? Well, every day in America, every seven seconds, there’s a work-related injury. Every seven seconds in America, there’s an auto-related injury. And every day, every two seconds in America, there’s a home-related injury. So, injuries are the number one cause of chronic pain in the country and in the world today. Oftentimes, an injury patient or a patient that’s been injured may require the services of a lawyer in order to assist them with the adjudication process of their claim.

What we call a smart injury lawyer is one of the most sought-after lawyers in the market.

 There’s a reason why they’re the most sought after lawyers in the market, is because they’re unusual in the fact that they understand the injuries that they represent. Now they don’t have a doctorate. They’re not medical doctors. They’re not chiropractors. They’re not osteopaths. They’re not medical professionals. They’re not healthcare professionals, but they know about the injuries that they represent. That’s what makes them so sought after. Sought after from the patient’s point-of-view, or the client’s point-of-view. Sought after from doctor referrals point-of-view, because doctors want to work with attorneys that understand the injuries.

I have been a doctor in the injury market for the last 30 years.

 I’ve been a licensed doctor of chiropractic for the last 30 years. I’ve had a law degree since 2013 with special emphasis in personal injury work. Now I’m going to tell you that the majority of doctors in the spinal injury market, the biggest frustration that they have as doctors is that they’re oftentimes working with a client, with a patient, in their case a patient, that is working with an attorney that does not understand their injuries at all. In the area of spinal injuries, this is rampant in the legal community. Most attorneys in my experience do not know anything about the injuries that they represent when it comes to spinal injuries. Things like spinal ligament injuries, they have very little information on. A smart injury lawyer knows to the “T” what these injuries are all about, not because they have a medical degree in it, but because they have basic training and basic understanding of what these … just how significant these injuries are.

Today, they’re the number one cause of chronic pain and disability.

If you read the American Pain Association’s 2007 low back guidelines, an injury to the lower back, just the medical management of that condition is $9,000 to $19,000 per year. Work comp, if we go to worker’s comp, average cost of an average medically documented injury, according to the National Safety Council, is $42,000 per injury. The majority of these injuries are spinal injuries. So, what a smart injury lawyer in the market today is, is it’s a lawyer that actually understands the injuries that their client has. A smart injury lawyer that knows back and neck injuries knows that MRI is not necessarily the greatest test for ligament damage, not because MRI is not a great test. MRI is a great test. There are 23 discs that are specialized ligaments in the spine. MRI is a great imaging test for those 23 ligaments, however there’s over 220 specialized ligaments that hold the spine together.

One of the most major findings in a ligament injury was never designed to be picked up on MRI.

That’s excessive motion. Excessive motion, so anytime that you injure a joint, and the ligaments hold a joint together, anytime you damage the ligaments to the joint, the joint bones in their movement patterns will show excessive motion on stress testing. It’s a specialized form of radiographic testing that tests to see in different positions if the joint is slipping in and out of alignment. So, a smart injury lawyer knows that MRI of the spine was never designed to pick up excessive motion. So, it’s not a bad test. It’s just not a great test when it comes to ligament assessments. Smart injury lawyers know that the primary imaging procedure used is a set of great digital X-rays. A great digital X-ray study will tell you a lot about the ligament status of the, in this case, client.

Now, a smart injury lawyer will also know that if you have an excessive motion in the spine, so a smart injury lawyer knows that whenever you damage a body part, you must derange it. There’s no way to damage a human body part without deranging it. If a person’s bitten by a dog, there’s a very unique dog bite, which is a lesion or a derangement pattern that’s left behind. If a person is burned, it doesn’t look like a dog bite. The derangement pattern looks different. If a person is shot with a gun, and they have a gunshot wound, the derangement pattern is different.

Different types of injuries leave different types of derangement patterns behind.

In the spine, we have shear and compressive force. Whether the person’s in an auto accident, they slip and fall at home, they slip and fall at work, they lift something that’s too heavy for them at work, there’s shear force and compressive force to the spine. Now if the spine gets damaged, the ligaments get damaged. It causes excessive motion. The excessive motion is how a smart injury lawyer for back and neck injuries knows that’s the best way to assess the amount of ligament damage that you have. They also know that in the AMA impairment guides, which are basically injury guidelines, that there are three specific findings for spinal damage. One is picked up on a CTR X-ray, it’s called a fracture. One is a ligament finding picked up on X-ray, and accurately measured intersegmental motion study called a CRMA, or a computerized radiographic mensuration analysis. And then the other ligament finding, if the disc is involved, is an MRI.

We have to remember, if we go up to the top of the neck, there are no discs involved up there. So, your X-ray study is still your best study. So, what is a smart injury lawyer? A smart injury lawyer is a lawyer that understands the injuries. They don’t just turn cases. They actually take the time to learn about the injuries that they’re representing. That’s what makes them very sought after. That’s why doctors want to refer to them and that’s why patients seek them out. All I wanted to do today was just to explain, that’s what a smart injury lawyer is.

For more information on Spinal Ligament Injuries please check us out at www.smartinjurydoctor.com or check out our SmartInjuryDoctors® Podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Stitcher.

For information on spinal ligament testing by board certified medical radiologists go to www.thespinalkinetics.com

Want to learn more about Smartinjurydoctor's Program?

Reach Us

Want to know more? We are happy to receive a message from you.

246 Tierney Drive, Suite 1,
New Richmond, WI 54017

1-800-940-6513, ext 700

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CONTACT US

Smart Injury Doctors
701 Richards Ave
Clearwater Florida 33755

[email protected]
Call Lee Ann at 1-800-940-6513, ext 700

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© 2019 Biocybernetics Inc.

What Is Marketing for Doctors in the Injury Market?

What Is Marketing for Doctors in the Injury Market?

What Is Marketing for Doctors in the Injury Market?

Doctors in the injury market, lawyers in the injury market, specialists in the injury market, all want to market to get more injury patients, and there’s a commonality in the injury market that it’s very difficult to market for injury patients.

I totally disagree with that. First of all, one of the things that we create in the SmartInjuryDoctors® Program, for some the best injury doctors in the country, is the ability for these doctors to get a message out so that patients know that they’re there. I believe that the best doctors in the injury market are those that can get great results. That’s what we want to produce. That’s why we’re producing the SmartInjuryDoctors® Program. Doctors that can take back and neck injuries and get great results. They can get fast, effective, efficient, and very cost-effective results with these patients.

We Have This Idea of Marketing and That Marketing for Injury Patients Is Very Difficult

Well, it’s not difficult if you understand what marketing is. There’s a lot of books written on marketing, there’s a lot of things that could be said about marketing, for this segment I’m going to make it very, very short, and I’m going to define some terms. I’m going to make it easy to understand what marketing is.

Marketing is how you are perceived in your market. A marketing strategy then, is how you go about influencing how you want to be perceived in the market. Most marketing starts with a survey. You survey the public to find out what they want, and then you supply that want. That’s your marketing message, that you can supply what they want, and people will buy. That’s marketing.

Everything You Do Impacts Your Marketing

So, if marketing is how you’re perceived in the market, everything that you do with injury work is marketing. From the time that your front desk takes that first call, you’re marketing. Everybody that handles a patient in your clinic is marketing to a degree because they’re providing a perception. It’s how you and your clinic are being perceived by the injury patient. That’s marketing.

Your documentation is marketing. Your documentation that goes to the insurer is marketing. Good or bad. Your documentation that goes to a lawyer is marketing. Good or bad. So, if everything you do is marketing, you have to decide your marketing strategy and how you want to be perceived?

Before I move onto the next step, let’s just quickly define one other thing, that a lot of doctors don’t understand. That’s what is the difference between marketing and advertising. If marketing is how you want to be perceived in your market. Advertising is what you do to deliver that message to the public so that they know you’re there.

The Difference Between Marketing and Advertising

Advertising can be free or paid. For example, all the social networks are free. However, advertising can also cost you a lot of money. Advertising is taking your message and putting it on communication lines so that people can perceive you, whether it’s newspaper ads, TV commercials, radio commercials, social network posts, videos on YouTube, that’s all advertising. The message that you’re relaying, is your marketing.

On the injury side of things, one of the things you want to market today is fast, effective results. Remember, when you look at marketing, each market has a different need. If you look at patients, what do patients want? Well, they want fast, efficient, and very inexpensive care. That’s what they want, in general, right? So, if I’m marketing, or you’re marketing to injury patients, you want to focus on fast, effective results because that’s what they want.

Marketing to Attorneys

If you’re marketing to attorneys, what do attorneys want? Well, they want excellent documentation. So, one of the ways that you might market to an attorney is by focusing on the fact that we don’t waste your time with poor documentation. Our SmartInjuryDoctors® are the best doctors in the country as far as documentation goes, because they understand the simplicity of what everyone in the market needs, so it becomes very, very easy. If I’m with attorneys, it’s very easy to market and say, “Well, look we don’t waste your time with bad documentation.” And trust me, most documentation in the injury market is pretty bad.

Most of the time in the spinal ligament injury market, ligament injuries aren’t even documented, so the severity of the injury is not documented, and that starts a problem. It causes problems for attorneys, insurers, and adjudicators, it starts a problem all down the line. So, if I’m a SmartInjuryDoctor® who is marketing to an attorney, one of the things that we’re going to say is that we don’t waste your time with bad documentation, like the majority of doctors that you probably work with.

Marketing to Medical Doctors

If I’m marketing to medical doctors, or other providers seeking referrals, I might choose something like: “We don’t submit patients to any form of excessive care. All the care that we give is the care that the patient needs, and no more.” That’s what we provide. We provide only care that’s necessary to get that condition stabilized fast, effectively, and then we release the patient. That’s what I’m going to be talking about if I’m talking to medical doctors.

Three Things You Must Do Well

All I wanted to do in this short post, is just explain, what is marketing? It’s how you are perceived in the market. There are three things that you want to do excessively well in this market:

  1. You want to be able to diagnose the injuries, the extent of those injuries, and you don’t want to miss injuries. If you’re a doctor of chiropractic, I’m going to tell you one of the things that I recommend that the doctors market is that when they’re assessing injuries they communicate to the market that they only use top medical specialists to interpret their imaging, to get an accurate diagnosis.
  2. You want to be exceptionally good at treating those injuries.
  3. You want to be exceptionally good at documenting in such a simple way that everyone in the market knows exactly what’s going on. That reduces problems for the patient. It reduces problems for the patient’s attorney. It reduces problems for the insurer. It reduces problems for everyone in the market.

When you’re providing everyone with what they need in the market, you’re marketing, and that will actually cause you to bring in a lot more injury patients. If you’re the top doctor in your area, you should be seeing as many of the injury patients in your local area as you possibly can, because those patients as we talked about in other additions of this program, are at super high risk for long term residual complaints.

Send Your Market the Right Message

You want to intentionally decide what message you are sending to the public in your area. Once you choose your message, you want to advertise and promote, so that people become very aware that you’re here. Our key thing today about marketing is how you’re perceived. A marketing strategy is deciding how you want the market to perceive you, and understanding your market is important because then you can put forth what the market wants. They will perceive that you have what they want, and that’s the simplicity of marketing. That’s all marketing is.

I hope that clarifies things. Like I said, I want to keep it very, very quick and to the point, on a particular topic. All I wanted to address here was what marketing is, and that it does not have to be difficult for injury patients. It really does not. Our SmartInjuryDoctors® know that, and they know that they have a message that they’re readily putting out., It’s very, very easy to do, and that doctors, is marketing.

For more information on Spinal Ligament Injuries please check us out at www.smartinjurydoctor.com or check out our SmartInjuryDoctors® Podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Stitcher.

For information on spinal ligament testing by board certified medical radiologists go to www.thespinalkinetics.com

 

Want to learn more about Smartinjurydoctor's Program?

Reach Us

Want to know more? We are happy to receive a message from you.

246 Tierney Drive, Suite 1,
New Richmond, WI 54017

1-800-940-6513, ext 700

Leave A Message

CONTACT US

Smart Injury Doctors
701 Richards Ave
Clearwater Florida 33755

[email protected]
Call Lee Ann at 1-800-940-6513, ext 700

SEARCH THIS SITE

© 2019 Biocybernetics Inc.

What Is Marketing for Doctors in the Injury Market?

What Is Marketing for Doctors in the Injury Market?

What Is Marketing for Doctors in the Injury Market?

Doctors, lawyers, and other specialists in the injury market, all market to try to get more injury patients. There’s a common belief  in this space that it’s very difficult to market for injury patients.

I totally disagree with that idea. First of all, one of the things that we create in the SmartInjuryDoctors® Program, for some the best injury doctors in the country, is the ability for these doctors to put a message out letting patients know that they’re there. I believe that the best doctors in the injury market are those that can get great results. That’s what we want to produce. That’s why we’re producing the SmartInjuryDoctors® Program. Doctors that can take back and neck injuries and get fast, effective, efficient, and very cost-effective results with their patients.

 

We Have This Idea of Marketing and That Marketing for Injury Patients Is Very Difficult

Well, it’s not difficult if you understand what marketing is. There’s a lot of books written on marketing, there’s a lot of things that could be said about marketing, for this post I’m going to make it very, very short, and I’m going to define some terms. Let me make it easy to understand what marketing is.

Marketing is how you are perceived in your market. A marketing strategy then, is how you go about influencing the market’s perception of you. Most effective marketing starts with a survey. You survey the public to find out what they want, and then you supply that want. That’s your marketing message, that you can supply what they want, and people will buy. That’s marketing.

Everything You Do Impacts Your Marketing

So, if marketing is how you’re perceived in the market, everything you do with injury work can be seen as marketing. From the time that your front desk takes that first call, you’re marketing. Everybody that handles a patient in your clinic is marketing to a degree because they’re adding to that perception. It’s how you and your clinic are being perceived by the injury patient.

Your documentation is marketing. That documentation that goes to the insurance company is marketing. Good or bad. Documentation that goes to a lawyer is marketing. Good or bad. So, if everything you do is marketing, you have to actively decide your marketing strategy and how you want to be perceived?

Before I move onto the next step, let’s just quickly define one other thing, that a lot of doctors don’t understand. That’s what is the difference between marketing and advertising. If marketing is how you want to be perceived in your market. Advertising is what you do to deliver that message to the public so that they know you’re there.

The Difference Between Marketing and Advertising

Advertising can be either free or paid. For example, all the social networks are free. However, advertising can also cost you a lot of money. Advertising is taking your message and putting it on communication lines so that people can perceive you. Whether it’s newspaper ads, TV commercials, radio commercials, social network posts, videos on YouTube, it’s all advertising. The message that you’re relaying, is your marketing.
On the injury side of things, one of the things you want to market today is fast, effective results. Remember, when you look at marketing, each market has a different need. If you look at patients, what do patients want? Well, they want fast, efficient, and very inexpensive care. That’s what they want, in general, right? So, if I’m marketing or you’re marketing to injury patients, you want to focus on fast, effective results because that’s what they want.

Marketing to Attorneys

If you’re marketing to attorneys, what do attorneys want? Well, they want excellent documentation. So, one of the ways that you might market to an attorney is by focusing on the fact that we don’t waste his or her time with poor documentation. Our SmartInjuryDoctors® are the best doctors in the country as far as documentation goes because they understand the simplicity of what everyone in the market needs, so it becomes very, very easy. If I’m with attorneys, it’s very easy to market and say, “Well, look we don’t waste your time with bad documentation.” And trust me, most documentation in the injury market is pretty bad.

Most of the time in the spinal ligament injury market, ligament injuries aren’t even documented, so the severity of the injury is not documented, and that starts a problem. It causes problems for attorneys, insurers, and adjudicators, it starts a problem all down the line. So, if I’m a SmartInjuryDoctor® who is marketing to an attorney, one of the things that we’re going to say is that we don’t waste your time with this bad documentation, like the majority of doctors that you probably work with.

Marketing to Medical Doctors

If I’m marketing to medical doctors, or other providers seeking referrals, I might choose something like: “We don’t submit patients to any form of excessive care. All the care that we give is the care that the patient needs, and no more.” That’s what we provide. We provide only care that’s necessary to get that condition stabilized fast, effectively, and then we release the patient. That’s what I’m going to be talking about if I’m talking to medical doctors.

Three Things You Must Do Well

All I wanted to do in this short post, is just explain marketing. It’s how you are perceived in the market. There are three things that you want to do excessively well in this market:

1. You want to be able to diagnose the injuries, the extent of those injuries, and you don’t want to miss injuries. If you’re a doctor of chiropractic, I’m going to tell you one of the things that I recommend that the doctors market is that when they’re assessing injuries they communicate to the market that they only use top medical specialists to interpret their imaging, to get an accurate diagnosis.
2. You want to be exceptionally good at treating those injuries.
3. You want to be exceptionally good at documenting in such a simple way that everyone involved knows exactly what’s going on. That reduces problems for the patient. It reduces problems for the patient’s attorney. It reduces problems for the insurer. It reduces problems for everyone in the market.

When you’re providing everyone with what they need in the market, you’re marketing, and that will actually cause you to bring in a lot more injury patients. If you’re the top doctor in your area, you should be seeing as many of the injury patients in your local area as you possibly can, because those patients as we talked about in other editions of this program, are at super high risk for long term residual complaints.

Send Your Market the Right Message

You want to intentionally decide what message you are sending to the public in your area. Once you choose your message, you want to advertise and promote it, so that people become very aware that you’re here. Our key thing today about marketing is how you’re perceived. A marketing strategy is deciding how you want the market to perceive you. Understanding your market is important because then you can put forth what the market wants. The public will perceive that you have what they want, and that’s the simplicity of marketing. That’s all marketing is.

I hope that clarifies things. Like I said, I want to keep it very, very quick and to the point, on a particular topic. All I wanted to address here was what marketing is, and that it does not have to be difficult for injury patients. It really does not. Our SmartInjuryDoctors know that, and they know that they have a message that they’re readily putting out., It’s very, very easy to do, and that doctors, is marketing. Register for my next Webinar to discover more about marketing your practice.

Want to learn more about Smartinjurydoctor's Program?

Reach Us

Want to know more? We are happy to receive a message from you.

246 Tierney Drive, Suite 1,
New Richmond, WI 54017

1-800-940-6513, ext 700

Leave A Message

CONTACT US

Smart Injury Doctors
701 Richards Ave
Clearwater Florida 33755

[email protected]
Call Lee Ann at 1-800-940-6513, ext 700

SEARCH THIS SITE

© 2019 Biocybernetics Inc.

Warning: American Family Doctors Publication Shows 90% of Back Injuries Are Improperly Diagnosed

Warning: American Family Doctors Publication Shows 90% of Back Injuries Are Improperly Diagnosed

Warning: American Family Doctors Publication Shows 90% of Back Injuries Are Improperly Diagnosed

In this article we want to discuss an article that was published in the American Family Physicians Journal. This article brings up a topic that I’ve been talking about for years. And it’s only gotten worse. This article claims that 90% of today’s injured patients who’ve suffered a back or neck injury are working with doctors who do not have a clear understanding of their injuries. Wait, it gets even worse.

There’s A Familiar Lack of Understanding Present in This Article

These same doctors are unable to find the underlying physical conditions of these injuries at a time when these back and neck injuries have never been easier to diagnose. We’ve gone over this before and I am not going to go into depth in this article abut the role that an MRI and stress radiological studies play in picking up the two key bio imaging markers for these injured patients. These injuries account for:
  • #1 Cause of disability and chronic pain: Lumbar Spine Injury
  • #4 Cause of disability and chronic pain: Neck Injuries
  • #6 Cause of disability and chronic pain: Headaches associated with an injury to the ligament of the cranio-cervical junction or the cervical spine itself
I want to go over this with you in detail. I’ll put a link to the article here which appears on the American Family Physician website. The article we’re going to break down is the one called “Non-Specific Low Back Pain in Returning to Work” You can open it up and follow along with me.

I’m going to point out some things that are very prevalent in the market today and this is exactly what needs to change.

It says that as many as 90% of persons with occupational non-specific low back pain are able to return to work in a relatively short period of time. Now, I’m going to contest this point and quite a few other things in this article. You see, this position paper is a telltale sign of today’s market and it’s pushing the agenda that if there are no red flags with a patient, we as doctors can get them back to work quickly.

What are these red flags, you ask?

  • Infections
  • Fractures
  • Cauda Equina Syndrome
If one of these isn’t present a patient should be encouraged to remain as active as possible. We should minimize bed rest. It states that we should advocate the use of hot and cold compresses to minimize swelling and tell patients to take anti-inflammatory medications as desired.

What this article is telling doctors to do…

These patients need to take part in home exercises and be returned to work as soon as possible. Medical and surgical interventions should be minimized when abnormalities are not found in physical examinations. Patients who are having difficulty returning to work after four to six weeks should be examined and studied for possible personal and occupational psychosocial factors. A multidisciplinary program should be strongly considered to prevent a delayed recovery in those patients struggling to return to normal baseline activities and pain levels. One of the biggest problems I see with delayed recovery is that it is often the result of a delay of an accurate diagnosis of what the problem is in the first place. This article rightly points out that these medical doctors openly admit that they do not know what the underlying pathology is as you’ll see here. So, it goes on to say that patient advocacy should include unnecessary and ineffective medical and surgical interventions, work loss, joblessness, and chronic disabilities. The next thing the article states is that the management of low back pain and determining a patient’s safe return to work are common issues encountered by family physicians today.

Challenges include unfamiliarity with:

  • A patient’s individual job demands and requirements
  • Complex Workers’ Compensation systems
  • The vast array of diagnostic and therapeutic interventions of questionable effectiveness and value
The medical doctors in this article are actually openly admitting that most of the diagnostic and therapeutic interventions they order have questionable effectiveness and value when it comes to treating and diagnosing these injured patients.

Clearly, the object of this article is to encourage a plan of conservative care.

What is conservative care?
  • Physical Therapy
  • Chiropractic
  • Massage
  • Acupuncture
This is what most family doctors follow when they talk about following a conservative care path for their injured patients with occupational low back pain. This article throws around a lot of terms, so let’s take a moment and define one of them. Occupational nonspecific low back pain is pain that occurs predominantly in the lower back without neurological involvement or serious pathology. Let’s be real here, okay?

What they are basically promoting in this article is an early return to work for injured patients. And that right there is a huge part of the problem.

It says that according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics that there were 4.2 million non-fatal occupational injuries or illnesses reported by private industry. Sprains and strains accounted for approximately 42% of the injuries. So, as doctors they need to understand that when we look at the number of injuries, those involving the back is number one. It’s the number one cause of chronic pain and disability in the world today. And if you remember as I stated earlier the next is number four. That’s a huge number of our injured workers. So, sprains and to the back and neck are going to require doctors in the market who understand what a bio imaging marker looks like in an injured patient with neck or back complaints. Meaning, you will no longer have patients walking around with an incorrect diagnosis of nonspecific mechanical low back pain.

The Role of Risk Factors in Diagnosing These Injuries

This article goes on to attribute the cause of this nonspecific low back pain to certain risk factors. That’s because these doctors will openly tell you that they have no way of accurately diagnosing these patients. In general, medical doctors cannot clearly identify the cause of this pain in 90% of the patients they see. Now, when I say medical doctor, I’m talking about general practitioners. Now, it goes on to say that some physical demands including manual lifting, bending, twisting, and whole-body vibration are associated with an increased likelihood of low back pain. Please note: Association is not equivalent to causation. It should also be noted that personal and occupational psychosocial variables play a more important role in spinal pathology than just the physical demands of the job.

And that’s where it can get kind of tricky…

They openly admit they don’t know the cause of this low back pain, yet in a sentence or two later they are saying there’s strong evidence that personal or occupational psychosocial variables play a more important role in these injuries than the spinal pathology itself. Now, that my fellow doctors… Could not be further from the truth.

Let’s look at what they list as psychosocial risk factors:

  • Depression: Well I would argue that anybody who suffers from chronic pain and cannot get help from the medical community might exhibit signs of depression. Especially in an active person who cannot find relief or understanding from a doctor who understands their condition.
  • Education Level: This is an understanding and belief that those with lower education levels are more prone to chronic disabilities. Again, what does someone’s education level have to do with an injury. Isn’t more likely the case that a doctor who cannot solve a problem with an accurate diagnosis is likely to blame a patient’s lack of education as the basis for the patient himself not understanding their own injury?
  • Excessive Pain: Well, if you are in constant pain and the medical community is not offering relief, over time this can build up. Is there anyone who wouldn’t say that this amount of chronic pain would be classified as excessive?
  • Fear Avoidance: If you are suffering and unable to find anyone to help you, it’s fair to say that you would fear returning to the same position that caused you pain. That’s a totally legitimate concern. That’s not something I would classify as fear avoidance or job dissatisfaction.
  • Somatization disorder: That is when you are putting too much attention on a condition. Si, again if the doctor cannot figure out what the problem is, if they cannot get to the underlying problem that is going to cause you some obvious distress. It would be hard to imagine a condition like this not dominating your life. So, this talk of “putting too much attention” on this condition seems to be unfair from the patient’s point of view.
  • Unemployment Compensation: What does this have to do with a medical condition? If you’re unemployed and trying to get money to live on from an employer whose job caused your injury, I do not see how that causes pain. I would say it’s the same thing with workers’ compensation claims. It’s not fair to say that legitimately injured patients are trying to distort their injuries just to receive some compensation.
All these issues are problematic when you consider what is really going on.

There is no standardized method of diagnosing these injuries.

Even my own profession of chiropractic is problematic. They have not and are unlikely to standardize the workup of these injuries. The major chiropractic schools don’t even teach bio imaging markers that are consistent with soft-tissue injury to the spine. So then, this becomes the problem that all professions have: physical therapy, chiropractic, Medical doctors, medical specialists. They all have the same problem. No knowledge of what is going on with these types of injuries and no way to consistently diagnose them. This is why SmartInjuryDoctors are so important in the market today. I hope that what I just laid out for you is something that you enjoyed because 90% of the patients suffering from back and neck injury should not be working with any doctor who is incapable of diagnosing the underlying condition. Most of these doctors, no matter what their specialty are just making the same mistakes over and over. They end up relying on articles like this one to justify their rush to return patients to the work force. Patients who are still injured and still in pain.

That is what I am trying so hard to change.

With these articles, my podcasts, my videos…I’m trying to reach doctors wherever they are and show them a better way of doing things. That’s what the SmartInjuryDoctors Program is all about. We need the injury market to change because the patients deserve to work with doctors who not only care, but doctors who can get real results. For more information on Spinal Ligament Injuries please check us out at www.smartinjurydoctor.com or check out our SmartInjuryDoctors® Podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Stitcher. For information on spinal ligament testing by board certified medical radiologists go to www.thespinalkinetics.com

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