Question

Hinder has injured her back at work. She is diagnosed with a slipped disc and must be off work for at least three weeks. Outline the steps she would take to:

report her accident initially.

obtain the forms she would require the doctor to fill out.

apply for compensation (include the location of the nearest Workers’ Compensation office).

Summarize your responsibilities as the Medical office assistant working in the doctor’s office.

Answer 1

Herniated or slipped disc refers to misalignment of disc towards the outer layer of spine. This can lead to damage in the nerves which is present near the disc. All together can lead to malfunctioning of the region, that is responsible of that particular nerve. In the given scenario, the patient has been already diagnosed with the issue. So, the medical assistant (MA) should help her with other procedures like noting down the reason that caused her herniated disc and any her compensation from her work place.

a. Reporting about the accident by a patient:

The patient should say about how and when the accident happened to MA. And, she should also mention where it happened along with any presence of tools or instruments that caused the damage in spine. And, it is also important for the patient to be given with certain anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen for slight pain. If the pain lasts or increases within 6 weeks, then the MA can contact physician and suggest for MRI. Other techniques like myelogram, CT scan and EMG etc can be suggested to check any loss of sensation or function at a particular region in her body.

b. Forms to be filled by the patient:

The patient along with her MA should fill out a form called Residual Function Capacity (RFC) to claim for work place limitations after the work place accidents. It is a form to be filled by a physician or MA and sent to SSA (Social Security Administration) office. As this patient has asked to be rest for 3 months, this means she cannot claim for totally and permanently disabled in the blue book of SSA. So, she claim for MVA (medical vocational allowance) until she returns to the job or able to do the job with or without the herniated disc after three months with the help of information provided by MA.

c. Workplace compensation:

According to the amount of damage and the time of bed rest, the compensation amount varies. It also varies accordingly to the region where the office is situated for example, in Virginia for a patient who had a week of bed rest along with physical therapy has got to claim 10,000 dollars. And, it can even to rise to 1000,000 dollars if the damage is permanent and if she cannot even work in her life. In this case, the patient's residential address or the hospital address is not mentioned so nearest worker's compensation office cannot be decided. And, most important point is that the salary amount that is earned by her decided how much of compensation she is going to after her injury. Other than these, the MA can help her to receive TTD or temporary total disability benefits can be claimed which is calculated as two-third of the amount (salary per week before the injury minus salary per week after the injury occurred that is decided by the company or industry to be given) after the approval of SSA.

All the forms and compensation procedures can be assisted by MA because, because medical approval is a must to claim such benefits. Insurance forms and form filling out are the processes that are a responsible of MA.