Neck pain and cervical disorders may qualify for long term disability (LTD) benefits from your insurance company. Yet don’t be surprised if your disability claim is denied.
While insurers may promise to pay LTD benefits if you are unable to work, many will deny valid claims, lowball payments or resort to delay tactics – hoping you will give in and abandon the claim.
Knowing what it takes to prove you are disabled, and understanding how your insurance provider will respond to your claim, are key to winning the benefits you deserve.
Neck and cervical problems can obstruct a person from doing both physically demanding and sedentary jobs. From steelworkers to typists to cardiac surgeons, chronic neck pain and restricted movement can bring about the end of one’s career.
Disability claims for neck pain and cervical disorders are among the most common in the U.S. Not all cases warrant disability benefits, as some cases improve with time and treatment. Insurance companies know this, and are therefore skeptical of and quick to deny legitimate disability claims for these impairments.
If the insurance company unfairly denies your claim, contact our law firm. We have an extensive understanding of disorders of the cervical spine and the laws governing long term disability insurance.
We can help you fight back and appeal the denial with an administrative appeal that will stand up in a federal lawsuit.
If you need help preparing your initial claim, we can help you develop and file a solid initial long term disability application.
Neck Pain and Cervical Disorders that May Qualify for LTD Insurance Benefits
Starting at the base of the skull, the cervical spine extends through seven vertebrae and ends at the chest area of the spine. Between the vertebrae are vertebral discs, which serve as shock absorbers and enable neck motion and great flexibility.
The seven vertebrae are connected by facet joints, permitting twisting and forward/ backward motion. The cervical spine houses cervical nerves, C1 through C8.
Disability can result from any number of medical and physical issues, from muscle strains and worn out joints, to nerve compression, disease and serious injury.
Cervical Disc Degeneration: A leading cause of disability is cervical disc degeneration. Whether deterioration is due to arthritis, osteoporosis or disease, over time the vertebral discs can degenerate and lose their sponginess. This leads to radiculopathy, where compressed nerve roots (aka “pinched nerves”) occur between the discs. As explained below, the side effects from can be quite serious.
Cervical Radiculopathy: Cervical nerves run through the spinal cord. When the nerve roots become damaged, the result can be radiating pain, weakness and/or numbness from the shoulders and down the arms to the hands. Radiating pain happens when a cervical nerve is pinched. Cervical radiculopathy can also be attributed to whiplash, falls and other trauma, meningitis and certain cancers.
Other disabling cervical disorders include various myelopathies, or diseases, of the spinal cord:
- Injuries to the cervical spinal cord: depending on the vertebrae affected, the patient may suffer neurological deterioration, partial or full paralysis or quadriplegia, impaired ability to breath, and inability to control bladder and or bowel function; extreme cases can be fatal.
- Cervical spondylosis with myelopathy (impaired spinal cord due to deterioration of the cervical discs and facet joints)
- Cervical spondylosis may lead to compression of arteries in the neck; this can damage the blood supply to the brainstem causing dizziness, dangerous drops in blood pressure, blurred vision, ringing in the ears, and pain behind the eyes.
- Carcinomatous myelopathy (cervical spinal cord degeneration associated with cancer)
- Compressive myelopathy (cervical spinal cord changes from the pressure of hematomas or masses)
- Radiation myelopathy (cervical spinal cord destruction from radiation sources such as x-ray therapy)
- Various forms of destruction to the cervical spinal cord resulting from complications of disease, such as diabetic myelopathy.
For a free legal consultation, call 800-562-9830
Proving Disability for Neck Pain and Cervical Disorders
In efforts to deny these disability claims, insurers often consider the cervical spine to be a single organ. Our disability lawyers understand that the cervical spine is a complex system of biomechanics and vital anatomy.
Proper medical evidence, routine doctor’s visits and treatment, and thorough patient history is the basis for successfully proving long term disability to an insurance company and to the court.
By using relevant medical and vocational evaluations, we build your case based on gainful evidence of disability due to your specific neck pain and cervical disorders.
- Imaging tests such as x-ray, CT scans and MRI reinforce evidence of structural damage, and offer supportive medical data along with your medical history and physical examination.
- Other diagnostics such as electromyography (EMG) can help uncover nerve conduction problems, while blood tests may aid in exposing infectious conditions or serious inflammatory disorders.
- Discography helps establish whether the vertebral discs in the cervical spine are a source of pain.
We can help you with all of this, and we make the process easy for you.
Your insurance company may require that you submit to a Functional Capacity Exam (FCE). When handled improperly, the FCE can render results the insurer can actually use against you, and to contest your treating doctor’s statements.
Our attorneys are prepared for this and other bad faith techniques used by insurance companies. We counter such efforts by initiating properly-run FCE exams, and evaluate your Residual Functional Capacity (RFC) to give us a true measure of your capacity for full-time work.
Be Prepared for Surveillance
Many insurers conduct surveillance on individuals seeking neck and cervical disability benefits. This is yet another tactic used to deny valid claims. Insurers can easily misrepresent a person’s true condition through video surveillance and photographs taken out of context.
Ten seconds of film footage of you lifting a bag of groceries out of your car, or finding your Facebook page showing you playing with your children can be all that’s needed to conjure up the wrong impression and distort reality.
Without an experienced advocate in their corner, most claimants are not equipped to defeat an insurance company that is motivated to deny. Don’t go it alone.
If you have questions about your LTD claim, or if your insurer, the SSA or the VA has unfairly or unreasonably denied your claim for disability insurance benefits, please contact us, Marc Whitehead & Associates, for a free case evaluation.
Meet our team, and allow us to earn your trust.
We guarantee to give you our best legal effort and service.
Call or text 800-562-9830 or complete a Free Case Evaluation form