Distal clavicle resection is a procedure where a portion of the clavicle (collar bone) near the acromioclavicular joint (part of your shoulder joint) is removed to relieve the effects of impingement (when the collar bone pinches a tendon in your shoulder causing pain and dysfunction). In the workers’ compensation world, this is often seen in conjunction with rotator cuff and labral injuries. If you had a shoulder surgery to repair your work injury, then it is important to determine if a distal clavicle resection was done during your surgery. This is because it gets you additional points on your impairment rating!
If you had shoulder surgery for your Texas workers’ compensation injury, there is a good chance that your impairment rating was or will be calculated incorrectly. This is one of the most overlooked upgrades to an impairment rating, and it takes specific knowledge to do something about it. In this blog, you will learn everything you need to know to get the right impairment rating for your shoulder injury.
How Does A Distal Clavicle Resection Surgery Affect Your Impairment Rating?
Most of the time, when an impairment rating is done for a shoulder injury it is based on any loss of range of motion in the shoulder. When a distal clavicle resection is performed, the impairment rating must also include an additional rating for that specific surgical procedure. The 4th Edition of the AMA Guides To The Evaluation of Permanent Impairment (which is used in Texas to calculate impairment ratings) provides for an additional 6% impairment to be added on to your impairment rating if you had the distal clavicle resection. This usually gets a shoulder impairment rating up to at least 10%. The result is a significant increase in impairment income benefits that you are owed.
Surprisingly, many certifying doctors fail to recognize that a distal clavicle resection was performed and they leave out this additional impairment. In every case involving a shoulder surgery, you have to make an effort to find out if that procedure was done because it is not always clearly apparent. Some doctors call it by a different name, like an excision or a Mumford Procedure, or some other name that means the same thing.
This is an issue that we often have to go to a hearing to resolve. For additional information about the hearing process in a Texas work injury claim, check out our free book, The Ultimate Survival Guide For Texas Injured Workers.
