Communicating with your Attending Physician Part 1
ATTENTION ALL CARRIERS THAT HAVE FILED A CLAIM TO OWCP. Once you receive a Development Letter, YOU MUST CONTACT ME IMMEDIATELY. Call 631-789-1616 so we can review your claim to determine what you need to do in order to help get your case approved. Failure to contact me could result in your claim being denied.
Medical Restrictions
One of the most important factors in having a claim accepted by OWCP for an On The Job Injury, is being able to communicate with your attending physician. It is important to have effective communication between you, your doctor and OWCP. This will greatly improve your chances of having OWCP approve any claim you may file if you suffer an on the job illness.
Finding an attending physician you can communicate with is very important step for the health of your claim. He or she should be willing to write any reports that OWCP may require. He or she should also be willing to write any reports that may be necessary to challenge an adverse action by OWCP. This includes possible rebuttal of second opinion examinations ordered by OWCP.
It is often to your advantage to find an attending physician who is a board certified specialist in the area of your accepted condition. This is especially true if your injury is long term or permanent.
In the past, medical specialists have assumed that rest was the most important factor in recovering from an injury. However, over recent decades due to advances in orthopedic and sports medicine, physicians have adopted a “use it or lose it” approach for rehabilitation of many injuries. This is because disuse can result in atrophy and deterioration.
While there are situations where the attending physician intends for the written restrictions (on a CA-17 or otherwise) to apply at all times, there are other situations where the physician intends restrictions to apply only to the work environment.
It is often the case that the physician wants the injured worker to test the limits of his or her restrictions in the course of normal life activities in order to hasten recovery or maintain the function of the injured body part. At the same time the physician does not want to subject the healing worker to the stress of timed production work.
Do not be afraid to ask the physician about the extent of your restrictions being applied. And most importantly ask what limits may be applied to everyday normal life activities. If it is the physician’s medical judgment that the restrictions should apply only to the work environment, the physician should put this in writing over his or her signature and attach it to the CA-17 or other statement of medical restrictions.
An example, for a shoulder injury, the statement could look something like this:
These restrictions apply to times and repetitive production work in an industrial setting such as casing and delivering mail….In order to aid my patient’s recovery from his/her injury {or to maintain the function of the injured body part} he/ she has been advised to use his/ her arms to the extent tolerable as he/ she goes about his/ her activities of daily living away from work. This includes the occasional reaching above the shoulder in activities that occur while doing routine life activities.
Such a statement could go a long way toward clarifying the situation for both you and the Postal Service especially if they are investigating your restrictions. One should remember to approach any activity outside of work that your physician may allow you to do for daily living activities carefully and cautiously.
