What is a Soft Tissue Injury ?

If you are an attorney or a patient reading this, many insurance companies will downplay the severity of someone's injuries. The reason is simple, insurance companies run a business, and a business is supposed to make money. The more money they give out in injury settlements, the less they have. Simple ! Unfortunately, the injured are the ones that will ultimately suffer because they are getting sub-optimal care. Common rhetoric in the medio-legal arena is that if something is soft tissue, it cannot be severe enough to cause damage. However, many physicians and attorneys that are not familiar with trauma care will accept that and take smaller settlement amounts because they don't have the proof that their injured client has more than just soft tissue injuries. What is a soft tissue injury? Well soft tissue can mean anything on a person's body, your spleen is a soft tissue, your intestines, heart and stomach are soft tissues. Insurance companies though are talking about strain/sprain of muscles. The diagnosis codes for these are what insurance companies look at for a person's injuries. Coding for these "soft tissue" injuries will automatically put the injury in a section of the insurance companies "colossus" computer program, downgrading the severity of the injury. (Make sure to read my blog on Colossus and Goliath for more information). Many healthcare providers do not know how to do a proper work-up, exam and case management to prove that a person has more than a soft tissue injury. If you are an attorney or a patient that is seeing someone for a auto related injury, make sure that they are a trauma qualified physician that knows how to properly work up these cases. If not, you are at a disadvantage because remember, insurance companies aren't in the business to lose money ! If you are experiencing neck pain, headaches, jaw pain, back pain, arm, shoulder or leg pain after an accident, call Auto Accident Pain Relief Center of Illinois for a consultation to see if we can help you at 800-862-5914.