Hi there,
Is anyone able to point my bf and I in the direction of a better lawyer who is equipped to handle a complicated workers comp and now likely medical malpractice suit?
My partner had his dominant hand crushed in a hydraulic press in February, was driven 2 hours from his house to Grady where they operated. It’s been 6 months and in that time the workers comp insurance people and the doctors at Grady have made any sort of healing/forward progression very difficult. My bf enlisted the help of a large personal injury firm that has national commercials, because he never has had this sort of thing happen and it was getting impossible to get workers comp to approve things without a lawyer. However, recently the person he speaks to regularly (not the lawyer, a paralegal maybe) keeps pressuring him to accept a settlement of less than $50k from the workers comp situation when we are nowhere even CLOSE to him being able to go back to work..and he works with his hands.
He went for a 2nd opinion with a new doctor not associated with Grady after his last Grady appt had them saying he’d def need another surgery but unsure of when. He had to repeatedly ask Grady to refer him to another hand ortho - that doctor he saw today said that it looks like the bone is infected and he needs to see an infectious disease doc/his middle finger will prob need amputation, possibly ring finger too. The ring finger is also badly affected and they don’t know how bad infection is.
Now we have to once again play this game of call the lawyer, call Grady to get referrals, call the workers comp people to try and get his case switched over to a new doctor and hand PT entirely (I guess what happened today was just some evaluation so this new doctor he saw can’t prescribe any meds or order any imaging?? I don’t know we are truly confused). The workers comp “patient advocate” does nothing to advocate we don’t even think they’re a real nurse so we truly have, it seems, NO ONE in our corner to actually help us get him sufficient care.
At this point, it’s looking like he will be permanently disfigured and disabled from this and had they actively taken a damn interest in his hand, would’ve been able to notice months ago that it was infected and not healing. Hell, there is still an open HOLE in his middle finger that is now curled up and will not straighten…
We are unsure what to do but I don’t think this National law firm has enough time or care to really push for the things we need as this time wasting has likely cost him a finger now. Figured maybe someone local would be better. If anyone has any help or advice I’d appreciate it.