Following a tripping accident at work on March 25th, I had severe swelling and pain in my knee, I went to the doctors that the Hartford required.in my medical history, I was very honest. I told them that I had the gout twice in my big toe over the course of 20 years. I had an MRI done and "their" radiologist saw no tear or evidence of injury aside from the remarkable swelling. I went to "their" orthopaedic, also. He did injections and a blood draw from the swollen area.
He found elevated levels of Uric acid in the sample, present when people have gout. (Once you have the gout, you ALWAYS have the gout, only it gets controlled by diet or meds.) He stated, "You have the gout. This IS NOT
a workers' comp injury." That was around the middle of April. I took my MRI to another doctor and, despite NOT being a radiologist, he clearly saw a tear.
Hartford stopped paying me once they had all the "pocket doctor" reports.
In December, I went to the same orthopaedic that I had been to under the Hartford policy. THIS time I went under my own policy, Blue Cross/Blue Shield. He examined my still-swollen knee and determined that I should be scoped. On January 4th, some 9 months after being injured, the doctor that stated that "this is NOT a workers' comp injury" performed the arthroscopic surgery. At that point, it was a vacuum process, because the damage was irrepairable after having been given no treatment, pitiful physical therapy and going back to work hurt. Working on it from August until the surgery in January, pretty much finished off the knee as far as fixing it went.
In his deposition, he remarked that "In my professional opinion, Mr. (name withheld)'s knee would not be in the shape it is now, had he been treated
properly in the first place." The Hartford rep slammed down his clipboard and stormed out of the deposition. Litigation is pending.
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