Scientific Research Proves the Work Comp System Makes Patients Worse

The latest breakthroughs in pain research focus on the relationship between chronic pain and the stress response. We already know that multiple systems are marshaled whenever we experience stress, each one modulating and regulating the others. The stress response system is designed to activate, repair and stop, since too much can cause permanent damage to the body. So when an endless round of delays and denials of treatment, as in the workers’ compensation system, are protracting the trauma, the stress response system can’t stop because the stressor never does.

In the five years I spent in the workers’ compensation system, waiting for my condition to be accepted, treated and dispensed, the psychotherapists I treated with kept telling me, and all the injured workers I was in group therapy with, not to focus on our work comp case. As a practical matter, that was impossible since, treatment to relieve our pain, and disability benefits that keep a roof over our head, was all controlled by an institutional behemoth designed to dismiss rather than to treat.  And so the stress continued.

Scientific research shows that when the stress response is prolonged, changes occur at the molecular level, some of them profound and lasting. Indeed many of these changes account for some of the deadliest diseases: diabetes, heart disease and obesity. No wonder return-to-work outcomes are so poor.

Regardless of what you think of the Affordable Care Act, it does raise one important question: why are we spending so much money on healthcare and getting such poor results? That question needs to be raised when it comes to workers’ compensation as well.

We know that with other self-regulating systems in the body there's a stop mechanism. Scientists also think they may have finally discovered the stop mechanism to chronic pain. This is terrific news, but clearly, unless the workers’ compensation system develops a stop mechanism of it's own, we’ll still see pitiable results.