From time to time I post an e-patient request from someone who seeks information or a community of patients with a particular condition. This one is for a patient who had knee surgery in April, and it hasn’t gone well; current status is “Lots of pain, mood low, can’t walk well at all.” The history:
Patient is 56 years old, athletic male in good health.
Partial knee replacement performed April 12, 2013. Within four weeks he was back in surgery because of bleeding.
They retrofited the appliance June 7, sewed him up and sent him home within a week.
Started bleeding again in 3 weeks; arteriography now scheduled for July 12 w/ radiologist to find bleeding, (possibly). Two options anticipate: rest, wait, heal; and/or, full knee replacement.
Any advice, thoughts, experience?
If you have advice, please reply in comments below.
If for some reason you want to reply privately, see my contact page. And thank you, all.
The very first thing that comes to mind is that this patient should seek an second opinion (objective and outside the current system he is in). One surgery with a revision done by the same surgeon..and now looking at a third surgery….hmmmm, I think I’d like a fresh set of eyes to take a look at it and any imaging that is being done. Hope this helps
Hey Epatientdave,
Thanks, on a related note, I was working at Office Max under the job title BSA (Boundless Sales Associate). At the time of my injury, I was primarily working the register because I had previous back injuries. When a customer requested a desk that I knew was heavy, I called for a team lift. One of my co-workers came back to the warehouse and we together slid the desk out instead of trying to lift it, but we had to pull hard because it was wedged in. In the process, I injured my back and over the course of the next hour or two my back pain got significantly worse. I reported this to the Furniture Specialist (Supervisor) who was the MOD. At first he refused to let me go home early to try to rest my back for work the next morning, so I told him he left me no choice but to file a work injury report right then. So he got the form out, on which I detailed the activity that resulted in the injury, the statement by the supervisor, the team lift that was employed and I was truthful on the form when it asked if this was a recurring injury.
The next morning I called my previous neuro surgeon that had treated my previous back injuries and when I was finally able to see him, he decided I needed to be taken off duty. When the doctor’s office asked about payment, I told them to contact Office Max to get the workman comp claim number.
As it turned out, when workman comp got that call, they paid the doctor, but then immediately called my store to ask one of the management if I was injured. The manager that spoke to them told them I was not injured, and so workman comp denied my claim and I wasn’t even able to get the MRI my doctor had requested. NO MEDICAL DIAGNOSTIC TESTS WERE APPROVED!
I only found out about this when I called the insurance company (they never even talked to me up until my phone call to them) and the rep I spoke to “looked up my claim” and said that they had called the store and that “they” said I wasn’t injured.
This would seem to be against the law in a few ways, but for the life of me, I cannot find any references to this sort of situation. At least not close enough to the circumstances I faced. Oh, so you all are aware, I live in IL.
Isn’t it illegal for a non-medical professional that is management at the store where you work to give any medical status about you to anyone at all if you haven’t signed a medical release of information yet?
Also, would this constitute a violation of HIPPA or doctor/patient confidentiality?? I know this seems like a stretch, but this is why I am asking is because I am uncertain.
Am I wrong in assuming I have a case for pain and suffering since I was forced to use expired medication (5 year old meds from previous back injury) to treat my injury. I also was obviously denied physical therapy which would have gotten me back to work in a month or two (judging by previous back injuries) as opposed to the 5 months that it took me to self treat.
Is there anything else that I should be considering? (Other violations by company, other damages to file for, statute of limitations on time frame)
And lastly, if I should take this to court, what type of attorney should I contact if my workman comp attorney decides he doesn’t want to take the case. It took him a little over two years before I just recently received a settlement contract late January 2011 for a settlement with the insurance company. He never called during the rest of that time.
Thank you in advance for anyone’s assistance on this issue and I apologize if I am forgetting any pertinent information.
Great Job!
I assume that this is not the first such event like this. I would start off looking for prior occurrences.
PRIOR OCCURRENCES
I would look to the immediately available information in Pubmed abstracts. I have a link to some of the abstracts that might be relevant. If the information in the abstracts is not helpful in identifying a possible expert, the patient could e mail some of the authors.
A second source would be the FDA database for reported adverse events for the particular device in question.
If the information was not available in these locations, I would consider consulting authors of the articles. If the patient is interested, I have some suggestions.
MEDICAL HISTORY
I would look at all abnormal events in the patient’s medical history and or family history.
CURRENT CONDITION
I would consider asking my internist or a hematologist to order a SMAC series of tests or at least the bloodwork to see if there are any abnormalities that might be contributing.
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