As a physician, you are busy with life, family and the practice. Providing a high-level standard of care to your patient’s is paramount for a number of reasons. Chief among them as an advocate for their care, is providing an evidenced-based program that focuses on returning them to work and functional capacity.

Most physicians will simply prescribe traditional out-patient PT for their patients suffering from neck and/or shoulder pain pathologies. This approach is and has been in theory correct, however, statistics show that most patients prescribed out-patient PT fail this course of treatment.

According to a Marquette University white paper, rates of completing physical therapy have ranged wildly from 45.5% to 100% some of the reasons include:1

1. Time constraints (Crockett et al., 1986; Long et al., 2004; Schachter et al., 2003)
2. Intervening medical conditions which precluded physical therapy participation (Long et al., 2004; Wang et al., 2004),
3. Experiencing pain during physical therapy (Long et al., 2004; Schachter et al., 2003)
4. Believing physical therapy was not helpful (Cohen et al., 1983)
5. Stating that the travel distance was too far (Wang et al., 2004)
6. Lack of privacy during physical therapy (Schachter et al., 2003).

However, when you prescribe the CerviFit® home therapy system, you are literally putting their prescribed PT in their hands. No need to travel any further than the bedroom or living room for a raised flat surface.

A 44 patient 10-week internal study done on the CerviFit® concluded, “all the enrolled patients in the CerviFit® Program had been refractory to the standard treatment currently practiced by the medical community in the Workman’s Compensation arena. The number of patients who had a positive response, and their success rate, was higher than anticipated. The reason for this was multifactorial. The patients had input and control in their care, received tangible feedback every two weeks over the course of the program, and expressed improved quality of life as documented by the Oswestry Index scale.”2

Covered by such names as Corvel, Sedgwick, Gallagher Bassett, AIG and other leaders in the workers comp space, CerviFit® is truly a conservative care model that the patient’s love and compliance and outcomes that show a marketed improvement over traditional out-patient PT.

What does the CerviFit look like and function on the patient?

What ICD-10 Codes has CerviFit® been prescribed for? 

1. M54. 2 Cervicalgia (most prescribed code)

2. G43.901 Migraine, unspecified, not intractable, with status migrainous

3. G43.909 Migraine, unspecified, not intractable, without status migrainous

4. S16.1XXD Strain of muscle, fascia and tendon at neck level, subsequent encounter

5. M50.10 Cervical Disc disorder with radiculopathy unspecified region

6. M50.11 Cervical Disc disorder with radiculopathy High Cervical Region

7. S13.4XXA Sprain of ligaments of cervical spine, initial encounter

8. S13.9XXA Sprain of joints and ligaments of unspecified parts of neck, initial encounter

9. M50.10 Cervical disc disorder with radiculopathy, unspecified cervical region

10. M54.12 Radiculopathy, cervical region

Why Strains are the Costliest Workers’ Compensation Claim

Strains were the costliest claim type in 2018 and 2020, and they were the most expensive one overall between 2018 and 2020. Why is that the case? A diagnosis for a strain in one part of the body often reveals a strain in other parts of the body as well. If an employee is feeling neck pain, for example, a specialist might show that they have a strain in their neck and their shoulder. An injury like that might bump costs.3

According to Neurologist Dr. Jeff Steinberg of First Choice Neurology, “MSK commodities manifest and refer to various pathologies. As my practice is significantly comprised of WC patients, I always spend around 5-7 minutes with the patient asking them about what they do, and the ergonomic environment and rigors of their job function. This interaction is both empathetic and fact finding that reveals a great deal of how, as well as why, the patient was injured. One patient a worker at an Amazon distribution center was experiencing numbness or neuropathy in her right hand. While she felt pain in her shoulder as well, an MRI showed a herniated C4-C5 which, while the pain referred to her shoulder, diagnostics indicated cervical. I prescribed the CerviFit home therapy thorough her TPA and three weeks into her home exercise and rehab therapy, based on her recent Oswestry test, the pain in her shoulder has been significantly reduced (anecdotal) and the Neuropathy is subsiding.

360° View of the CerviFit®