The short answer is no, you should not.
The longer answer is, I know many people swear by their chiro’s and have made good recoveries thanks to them. But the honest truth is that at the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission and with insurance companies and lawyers too, chiropractors have no credibility. This is especially true when you compare them to orthopedic doctors or neurosurgeons.
The reason I say this is because there are many chiropractors who over-treat and over-bill their patients and insurance companies. Others get tied in with scummy lawyers and refer each other clients back and forth, treating them as much as possible to try and add value to the case. I get solicited by these outfits all of the time (I always decline) So while there are plenty of honest chiro’s out there, they all suffer from the actions of the bad ones.
Beyond that, much of chiropractic care is designed to solve soft tissue problems and/or provide temporary relief as compared to medical doctors that treat the problems with advanced medicine and sometimes surgery in order to end the problem for good.
So if a case ever requires an opinion from a medical professional that an injury is work related or that a worker can’t do their job, a neurosurgeon or orthopedic doctor will always have the most credibility. If you try to rely on your chiro and the insurance company has a MD in their corner, they will win and you will lose, even if you are in the right. In fact, I’ve been handling cases since 1997 and can’t recall one time when an Arbitrator on a work comp case found in favor of the opinion of a chiro over a regular doctor.
I know some of you love your chiropractors and I’ve had clients tell me that their chiro is the best and is the only one that makes them feel better. I respect that, but I’m not here to tell you what you want to hear, I’m here to tell you the truth. And the truth is that anything beyond limited treatment will be disputed whether it’s valid or not and whoever the chiro is will not have a medical opinion that carries any way in proving the nature of your disability.
I never tell my clients which doctor they have to treat with because to me that’s scummy and could set up the injured worker to look bad on a witness stand. But I will tell them if their doctor is going to hurt their case. My general rule is that after two weeks with a chiropractor you are not all better, you need to ask for a referral to a specialist and let them take it from there.
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