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If you are admitted to a physical therapy facility for an injury and they don't do any rehab exercises and they discharge you after keeping you there for 4 months and I end up back in the hospital for an injury related to the injury that I was in the rehab center for, and because the rehab center discharged me knowing I wasn't better and that they didn't do any therapy with me at all can I take legal action ?

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I'm a 45 year old male that was involved in a truck. Vs motorcycle accident on 6/23/15 spent 3 months at hospital for recovery from injuries suffered, 2 collapsed lungs broken rib cage , clavicle, total spinal cord injuries required 2 fusions with 2 titanium rods and 43 screws after hospital, I went to rehab for 3 months learned how to walk and all that fun stuff again but never fully recovered, surgeon said that I would make a good recovery ! Better than he anticipated and that most I was gonna lose would be some flexibility so time goes on I have 3 months of at home care but I never even got back to 60% recovery! Surgeons office changes location and hospitals never saw him for follow up afterwards! Now 5 years later I'm on the decline and had a fall that landed me in the hospital was then put in therapy and that's where my ? 

From what you said in your profile, the rehab facility got you back on your feet again and functioning. After an accident of this caliber, expecting to get back to 100% is unrealistic, in my opinion.

Call some attorneys and let them tell you if they will take your case or not. We would have no way of knowing such a thing here on the forum.

Best of luck!
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There are a lot of difficulties about actions for medical negligence. One is that ‘best results’ are never guaranteed, however much the doctors and patients hope. Another is that getting supporting evidence of what you see as negligence is difficult, even in the most obvious cases – doctor’s look after their own! Yet another is that the medical insurers have far more resources than the average punter – although sometimes that means that they will settle out of court. And perhaps the worst is that dwelling on the whole thing is not good for your own recovery (particularly if you want to provide ‘proof’of how much this has affected you). Private investigators watching while you paint the patio is the next step. Sure, go and see a lawyer, and you may be taken on by someone who does a ‘no win, no fee’ deal. But it will dominate your life for years, and you may end up regretting the whole thing.

I am really sorry about your accident, and how badly it has affected you. I hope that you recover as best you can.
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Xander28 Dec 2020
Thank you for your kind words ! This whole situation has dominated my life now for 5 years. I was run over by a 53 ft tractor trailer pulling into a logistics company, an independent owner operator who had his own truck but no CDL CLASS A OR DL EVEN FOR A CAR , NO INSURANCE, AND NOTHING WORTH ANYTHING THAT WOULD BE ABLE TO HELP ME AT ALL! My work insurance paid out the a@@ for all my treatment as I had a very good job as GSM FOR A LAMBORGHINI/BENTLEY/ AUDI DEALER IN CHICAGO! I made a good living but that all stopped in June of 2015 as the dr's said it would be at least 7-8 months before I could be by myself again I had put $ away for rainy days and I had just bought a house . I had about $13,500 a month to cover so as I was in the hospital I'm calling the PD THAT Did the report and investigation so I can call his insurance and by the time I got the paperwork I needed his court date had passed and because nobody or me which I couldn't showed up to court mostly all his tix were thrown out and he provided some fake made up proof of insurance and he's gone off the map I blew through almost $175,000 in cash keeping up with everything plus I was helping out my mother who is living in a different state. So when all was said and done I had $7,000 left and I found a place in our budget I offered him 9 months paid upfront and he said no ! So we were forced into living in a hotel and that's super expensive even at. A clean affordable place ! cause now my fiancée was the breadwinner and I had 4 payments left on a 36 month car loan at $675 per month plus ins that I got for her 2 years after we meet that was repoed from us cause she wasn't able to make payment and insurance and even though we had some cash left I had to make sure we had a roof and I had to pay for a storage unit at $200 per month which we lost this year cause he job as a server bartender cv-19 obviously affected us so now I'm back in a rehab facility and don't know what to do or where to turn to I have no family where I'm at and no possessions anymore ! I've never been in this kind of predicament so I'm pretty useless right now
thank you for the well wishes

chris k😳
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How did it come about that you sat in a rehab facility for four months without receiving the therapy that had been ordered?
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Xander28 Dec 2020
I asked myself that same ? I asked the social worker there why have I not been seen His answer was that my insurance denied there request. I called my insurance care cordinater and asked why it had been denied ? Her response to me was that she never received such a request so I went back to the social worker and asked him to provide me with the denial from my ins care cordinater! He said he will gladly. So another week and a half went by and no proof finally I said I'm going to follow you around the whole day in my wheelchair until you show me this denial! He sighed and sat down at his desk and after 10 min he says I can't find the email I must have erased it!!!
I said your full of sh** and I want some answers! Then the next day my dr came in and said chris your 45 and your too young to be here maybe you should try an outpatient care plan ? Which my response was well that would be fine but during this whole situation I had been staying and living with my GF of 8 years we were to be married the year previous. Well she said that its been to hard on her and she wanted to have some time to be on her own which I said fine and I needed a place to stay until I could find something and was healthy enough to be on my own I asked a friend if I could stay by him for a few weeks he said no problem but not until his current roommate left at the end of September so the dr at the rehab says fine he will pay for me to stay at a motel for a month and 2 days b4 I was to go to my friends I had a terrible fall in the shower as I was trying to get up from sitting cause I can't stand up and transfer myself to my wheelchair and I slipped and landed in the hospital again and now I've been in another rehabilitation center and they have been giving me PT SO far I feel like had I gotten pt at the other place I wouldn't have had another fall and ended up at another facility! Thanks you
chris k
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Xander, while you were staying in the hotel room did you have any aides coming to assist you with your personal care and ADLs?
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Xander28 Dec 2020
None !!! I was given a ride from the home to the hotel
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When you are not progressing you are not kept in rehab. Updated responses below from you mean that this spine is long term injury now, 4 years, and you may have progressed as much as your body WILL progress, no matter what therapies or surgeries are done.
A 4 months stay in any rehab is almost unheard of. If you cannot progress well in that time, and the "injury" still exists to the same extent it did then it is unlikely that you can be helped by rehab. When Rehab is over one who cannot care adequately for one's self must have placement in Long Term Care that recognizes that this injury will likely be existing for life. So that's to say that therapy in rehab is not a life choice, basically.
No, as that silly Handel on the Law says every weekend on the radio, "I am here to tell you that you have absolutely no case:" What law can be brought to bear on your injury seems to me already to have been brought to bear, and as you said, several 100 thousand has already been spent on need.
It is not the fault of the rehab that you have the injured vertebrae and the likely permanent limitations. It is AWFUL, but not their fault. It is AWFUL and it may not be fixable. I cannot say what treatment of four burst vertebrae woud BE after four years of the system trying to fix it. I think none of us can have sufficient information about your case to comment with any competence.
And all said and done, whatever we might have as input, there is no reason you cannot consult your own lawyer to give you advice.
Just because you can no longer stay with a girlfriend doesn't mean that the medical community can afford to keep you in rehab. However, I don't understand their thinking they could dump you in the street in a wheelchair with your back in this condition and with a dependence now on oxy as well. It seems the hotel is short term placement due to covid and the homeless situation. Even that housing may not last for you, and permanent placement, or even temporary may be the answer, with medicaid to pay for it.
I do hope that you have a Social Worker who will help you with living arrangements long term.
I wish you good luck going forward. I hope you will update us.
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Xander, I also had trouble following the sequence of events, so I'm going to approach the issue from a different standpoint:  criteria for medical malpractice suits.

1.   Statutory limitations:   State statutes mandate that certain types of litigation claims must be filed w/I the time framework established in the statute, so you'll need to (a) establish dates on which malpractice occurred, or the beginning of the malpractice through the end of it.   (b)  If there's ongoing malpractice, that's probably a different issue, and one which I'm not qualified to address.

2.   If the statute has "run", you're unfortunately out of luck.

3.   If the statute hasn't run, you would have to get copies of medical records from the facilities at which you claim malpractice occurred.   This can be easily be handled by a medical malpractice attorney, who will subpoena the records, which have to be produced within a given timeframe.   If you try to get them on your own, the staff could "put your request at the bottom of the pile" and forget to respond.

4.    The med mal attorney would likely (a) forward the records to a practicing physician, or rehab physician, someone performing in the area of the alleged malpractice; or (b) have an on staff RN or other medical person review the records to determine if malpractice exists.   

5.   Consideration would also be given to what other rehab facilities, and the people who allegedly engaged in the malpractice, would do "in similar circumstances."    I.e., if certain types of therapy are standard for certain injuries, that would factored into the analysis.

6.    The doctor who reviews the medical records would indicate whether or not he/she has found evidence of malpractice.  If not, unfortunately, that's it.  

7.   If the doctor does find malpractice, the attorney would file suit.

8.  I don't mean to be rude, but I had a lot of trouble following the sequence of events, although I believe that you may have had another accident that complicated existing injuries.    If so, that would be a major factor in determining and/or assessing liability for the latest injury, which could be denied by the second cause of injury b/c it's not an original injury, but a complication of an existing one. 

Thus, the second potential defendant wasn't the sole cause of the second injury.    Factoring out what happened years before and what occurred subsequently, in terms of injuries, is challenging, although there are factors that could be addressed in causing follow-up complications.


I'm sorry; I just can't follow what else happened, but hopefully this basic outline will help you determine whether or not litigation is an option.
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What did you do in rehab for 4 months if they didn't have you do any exercises?
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Xander28 Dec 2020
They feed me and gave me pain pills daily !! 180 mg of oxycodone !
I have 4 burst fractured vertebrae and they didn't know what to do with me
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Xander--

Not to be rude--but if you post again, and I hope you do, please write in coherent paragraphs. I'm having a hard time following your story. (Please don't be offended by this--I think a lot of us need to see things broken down in order).

You suffered a terrible accident with a semi that carried no insurance and has no assets, correct? (Although a big rig is a BIG asset. IMHO) And now the owner is in the wind?

Being very injured and basically alone, you tried to make the company pay for pain and suffering. Trying to do that and heal from major injuries must have been awful.

In truth, ALL insurance companies will be hesitant to pay ANTYTHING on ANY claim...their first response, esp in larger cases, such as yours, is to deny, deny, deny. They want to wear you down and it often works. They know the ins and outs. You don't. Often, a simple 'coding error' is why they refuse to pay and they are not going to tell you that. They'll just keep denying you coverage.

MOST people will eventually give up the fighting and accept a less-than-adequate settlement, just to have the stress out of their lives. But you are not made 'whole' or 'better than whole' which is what the law states they are SUPPOSED to do.

You need to find an attorney who takes on these types of cases. You will receive only about 50-60% of any damages, and you won't feel 'whole' but maybe you'll feel somewhat vindicated.

You also need to be pushier about getting PT. I have found, the hard way, that my ins co doesn't want to do one single thing more than I push them to do. As far as the tickets and such--that's an issue separate from your health. Don't co-mingle the two--the accident is one thing, the healing/Pt/Hospital stuff is entirely separate.

Yes, it may require umpteen calls to your ins company. Keep copious and detailed notes of when you called, to whom you spoke, what YOU said, what THEY said and keep this as a log of info. Try to only talk to one person. Call every.single.day. I had cancer in 2019 and spent 3 days each week dealing with insurance. I'd set aside an hour or two for the calling and then put it to rest. It took me 4 months PAST my last chemotherapy to get them to pay, but they did.

Right NOW: you can go online and see what kind of exercises you can be safely doing alone. Leg pumps, upper body strengthening, etc. OR, pay for an in home visit from a PT who can guide you in taking care of yourself. I know my neighbor who is a PT does house calls and gives and hour or two to patients who cannot come in to his office.

Every day you go without moving your body is a day you regress, physically. You need to advocate for yourself in this.

I'm so sorry for what you are going through. I hope you can figure out what to do next. Don't give up hope.

(BTW, where are you located? If you don't want to share, that's fine. Just wondering).
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First, I hope you've been documenting any of your complaints to the social worker, and the lack of services by the facility involved with the rehab work. Also, you should have been reporting this to the insurance, making sure they're documenting it so that they can dispute the claims. Contact an injury attorney immediately to discuss your situation and for advice pursuing insurance fraud in conjunction with your insurance company or Medicare/Medicaid. I hope you made reports to your insurance, if not, that's where you should start right now. I have to ask though, why you didn't request a transfer earlier in your rehab stay to a better facility? In the meantime try to see if you can get yourself into another one as soon as possible. If you're on Medicare/Medicaid, call them and explain the circumstances, tell them that you'd like to make a fraud complaint, and want to dispute all claims by the facility for reimbursement, and discuss with them that you still need actual rehab. Then call an attorney ASAP.
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