New treatment guidelines posted online by the Washington Department of Labor & Industry on Friday elevate the level of scrutiny applied to cervical spine surgeries for workers’ compensation patients.
The guidelines, which have not been updated since 2004, were developed by the state's Industrial Insurance Medical Advisory Committee. They cover several procedures that are now more commonly used to address pain in the cervical spine, such as disc removals with fusion and artificial disc replacements. Those procedures were absent from the guidelines before. They go into e...
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