As a big part of my practice as an Atlanta personal injury lawyer in north Georgia, I handle many cases involving neck and back injuries. Many of these injuries are caused by motor vehicle accidents - involving cars, motor cycles and tractor trailers. Oftentimes surgery is required to treat these injuries. Unfortunately, insurance companies insuring the at-fault parties causing the accidents argue that such surgeries are not necessary to treat accident related injuries, but are needed to treat pre-existing conditions. The insurance companies do this to avoid paying the full value of a claim.
Typically, after an accident, my clients will feel pain and discomfort in their necks and/or backs and seek conservative treatment to treat these conditions. If conservative treatment is unsuccessful in resolving the problems, they will often have epidural steroid injections directly into the effected part of the spine. If these shots provide no relief, surgery becomes the last option.
The surgical procedures performed in these situations can include a diskectomy and fusion of the cervical (neck) or lumbar (back) spine; a decompression lamenectomy of the cervical or lumbar spine; a facetectomy of the cervical or lumbar spine, or some combination all of these procedures. These procedures are complicated, painful and proper recovery takes a lot of time.
The insurance companies, in an effort to justify not compensating for these procedures, will claim there is pre-existing arthritis and degenerative disc disease, including, spinal stenosis, osteophites, disc desication, spondilosis, and spondiolythesis, that are the cause of the surgery. The truth is, it is likely these conditions are present in the spine and do pre-exist the accident. That fact, however, does not mean the surgery was not required because of the accident and that the at-fault party/insurance company is not responsible for the related medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering.
An experienced Atlanta car and trucking accident attorney will know the complicated medicine related to spinal injuries and how to convince insurance companies - or the juries, if need be - that the surgery was required by the injuries caused in the collision and needs to be compensated. Arthritis and degenerative disc disease are often asymptomatic (they do not cause any pain, discomfort, numbness, tingling, etc.), and the trauma to the body in even low impact collisions can cause the otherwise painless conditions to become very painful and life changing. Don't let an insurance company determine whether your injuries and surgery are the result on their insured negligent actions. Please contact our firm if you or a loved one has suffered spinal injuries in a car or trucking accident to ensure this does not happen.
