How Chiropractic Care Can Help Workers’ Comp
Chiropractic care can be an effective treatment for many workplace injuries. It can help you recover, reduce pain and get back to your daily life. But how does workers’ compensation work if you’ve been hurt on the job? In New York, your employer’s workers’ compensation insurer pays for the medical care your work injury needs, including chiropractic care and physical therapy.
So how does this affect you? In an established claim, you don’t pay for your treatment: the insurer does. Don’t pay the provider yourself, and don’t use your own health insurance for a work injury. Except in an emergency, the provider who treats you must be authorized by the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board. If the Board finds that the claim is not valid, you can be responsible for those costs.
Does Workers’ Comp Cover Chiropractic Care?
If you’re reading this, you’re probably wondering whether workers’ compensation insurance covers chiropractic care. In New York, the answer is yes: chiropractors and physical therapists are among the providers the Workers’ Compensation Board can authorize to treat injured workers.
Chiropractic treatment can help people with back pain and other musculoskeletal conditions by relieving pain and improving function. Chiropractors also use various techniques, including spinal manipulation (the adjustment), massage therapy, relaxation techniques, and more. At Quantum, we treat Workers’ Compensation patients at every location and bill the Workers’ Comp insurer directly.
How Can Chiropractic Care Help My Injuries?
Chiropractic care can help you with the following benefits:
Pain Relief
Finding the pain’s source, or the location on the body where the afflicted nerves are, and relieving the pressure there, is the aim of chiropractic treatment. The spine’s vertebrae, the joints in the arms and legs, or soft tissues like the muscles, ligaments, and tendons can all be gently adjusted to achieve this.
Muscle Spasms
By easing the strain on the nerves and muscles around an injury, chiropractic care can help relieve muscle spasms. If you have other medical conditions, talk to your provider first.
Headaches
Some studies suggest that spinal manipulation can ease headaches that start in the neck.
Neck Pain
Healthcare providers conduct a neck adjustment, often referred to as cervical manipulation, which is a precise technique typically administered by hand to the joints of the neck. It helps the spine move more freely and restores range of motion; it can also make the surrounding muscles move more actively.
The Cost of Chiropractic Care for Workers’ Comp Patients
In New York, an injured worker with an established claim doesn’t pay for authorized treatment: the workers’ compensation insurer pays the provider directly. In some cases, chiropractic care may also offer back pain relief without surgery or long-term medication use.
Chiropractors are trained professionals who make gentle adjustments using their hands on your spine.
Why Should I Choose Chiropractic Care for Workplace Injuries?
Chiropractic care is a hands-on, drug-free option for many workplace injuries. While chiropractors are not medical doctors, they are trained to treat musculoskeletal injuries, including back pain and neck pain, using various techniques. They also know how to treat headaches and other disorders that stem from trauma to the spine or nervous system. Chiropractors have extensive knowledge about how the body works to identify what’s causing your symptoms.
Why Should I See a Chiropractor After a Work Injury?
After a work injury, a chiropractor can evaluate how the injury affects your spine and joints, help ease the pain and restore movement, and set a treatment plan for your case.
Most Frequently Treated Body Parts With Chiropractic Care
Your entire body may benefit from chiropractic treatment in several different areas. That may refer to the head, middle, lower back, or neck. Spinal manipulation may be beneficial if your lower back hurts. That is a successful method of treating lower back pain, whether it is acute or chronic. Additionally, spinal manipulation frequently relieves neck pain. There is less research on chiropractic care for middle back pain.
Does Chiropractic Care Have Any Real Benefits?
Chiropractic adjustments may help address lower back pain and discomfort. Even so, the benefits of the treatment for some conditions are modest. That is comparable to other traditional therapies. According to some studies, spinal manipulation can relieve headaches and neck pain related to your spine. Chiropractic treatment is not always practical and depends much on your circumstances. It might not be a good fit if you don’t respond to it within the first few weeks.
Is Chiropractic Treatment Safe?
You might wonder if chiropractic care is safe and if there will be any negative side effects. You should be aware of some things, such as headaches, soreness, and exhaustion. Rarely have patients experienced severe long-term adverse effects.
The good news is that you can prevent these problems by working with a reliable chiropractor. After spinal manipulation, the soreness and discomfort may disappear within a day or two. If the pain persists, you should take pain medication as prescribed by the health care provider. However, this treatment might not be advisable with certain medical conditions; if you have one, talk to your doctor first.
Visit Quantum Physical Therapy and Chiropractic Care
The bottom line is that chiropractic care can help workers’ comp patients recover from injuries and get back to work. Our locations treat patients after car accidents, work injuries, slips and falls and other injuries. If you have questions about whether chiropractic care suits your work injury, call the Quantum location nearest you.
