We round up our series of tips for healthcare professionals treating injured workers with some information about chiropractic care and mileage reimbursement.

• Injured workers who must travel 20 miles or more roundtrip for medical care are entitled to collect $0.55 per mile. Special consideration also is given to employees who are totally disabled.
• Chiropractic treatment is allowed for workers’ compensation patients, if the employer or the employer’s insurance company grants permission. As many as 20 visits are allowed, if medically necessary. If additional visits are needed, the chiropractor should request this authorization from the Industrial Commission.

If youv'e missed any of the previous tips, find them here.

In our last installment of the Deuterman Law Group's Back Health blog series, we highlighted some of the commonsurgeries for treating back injuries. Those included laminectomy, discectomy and IDET.

Today, we take up where we left off with a discussion of other surgical treatments for back pain, namely spinal fusion, artifical disc replacement and radio frequency ablation.

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Oh my aching back!

I don’t know a single person who hasn’t uttered that phrase at some point in life.

So you know that a back injury can be extremely painful. It can happen – snap your fingers – just like that. And when you injure your back, it can stop you in your tracks – prevent you from working, limit your movements, make sleep difficult, make walking difficult, make surviving daily life difficult.

In the first installment of the Deuterman Law Group’s Back Health series, we talked about the anatomy of the spine and the types of pain you might experience as the result of a back injury.

Today, we’re focusing on the most common types of back injuries -- sprains, soft-tissue injuries, bulging discs and herniated discs – and the typical course of treatment for each.

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Associated Press reporter Andrew Welsh-Huggins writes about his experiences with a back injury and his successful -- though lengthy -- recovery.

It's an interesting article that shows just how debilitating back injuries can be. The writer, a distance runner, outlines his long recovery and also highlights some of the realities of back injuries:

• The most common type of pain reported by adults in the United States, with more than one in four reporting some back pain lasting at least a day in the past three months. Eight of every 10 people in the United States will suffer from lower back pain at one point in their lives.
• The most common reason injured workers file for workers’ compensation claims, accounting for about one in every five U.S. claims for workers’ compensation.
• The leading cause of disability in the United States military.
• The leading cause of disability in people under age 45 and the third-leading cause in people older than that, after cancer and heart problems. One study found that two of every three people aged 20 to 60 reported some type of spinal pain in a given year.
• The leading cause of missed work time or doctor’s visits after headaches and cold symptoms.