Laminectomy Causes Rise in Workers' Compensation Claim Expenses

Each year, millions of American workers sustain work related injuries that involve injury to the low back. While most injuries resolve in a few weeks, following conservative care, there are some workers who require more extensive treatment for their work related injury. If you are an employer who insures employees who are at-risk for severe back injuries, it is important to understand not only what environments in the workplace may lead to lower back claims, but also understand the types of treatment your employees may have that will adversely affect your workers' compensation aggregate loss figures.

In the realm of low aid surgeries, a laminectomy is a major invasive extreme back procedure that can lead to many years of hurt and long term health care treatment for an injured worker. Typically, a laminectomy is a not procedure that is done in the days and weeks after a aid injury occurs but, instead, is a intention that is done as a last resort to alleviate complicated back injuries and associated back injury pain. For this reason, it is important to become familiar with the extent of the treatment and injuries sustained by your employees especially if that employee is claiming a low wait on complication.

With a laminectomy procedure, a allotment of the vertebrae is typically removed with the intent to alleviate back pain caused by chronic inflammation and nerve impingement. For injured workers, you may also hear of this procedure as being an "open decompression".

The rise in workers' compensation expenses, in association with laminectomy, does not come with the cost of surgery but, instead, in the failed resolution of pain after the surgery has been done. While laminectomy is designed to alleviate hurt for those suffering from a low assist injury, there are nearly 20 percent of all injured workers who report either no change in their pain levels, or an increase in pain, following the open decompression. When these changes are adverse, there can be a rise in healthcare expenses, even leading to lifelong use of muscle relaxers, pain management medications, and steroids – all factors that will adversely affect your workers' compensation premiums.

If you have a team of employees who are at-risk for a low back injury, be positive to educate your team in the wonderful body mechanics to be used to prevent low back injury from occurring. By acting proactively, and working to return employees to work soon after a work injury, you can help to prick the need for laminectomy as the employee continues with functional mobility. Without these proactive measures, your employees may be at a greater risk for needing laminectomy which, ultimately, will impact your bottom line and revenue from your business.

Sources: The Gale Encyclopedia of Surgery, vol. 2, pp. 824-825.

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