What to Do Within the First 10 Days of a Car Accident

Within the first 10 days of a car accident, it is important to book an appointment with a physiotherapist, or chiropractor. If you were not aware that you could take treatments for your injury even after 10 days or more, you can still request treatments for your injury from your insurance adjustor and also your preferred clinic for treatment to see a practitioner you trust, a clinic, or a preferred location of your convenience, the flexibility of appointments, clinic value your time, one on one treatments for the whole appointment, more hands-on than just pointless exercises, or machine treatments, not attending multiple clients at the same time, valuing your privacy more, providing a whole treatment room are some of the factors you may consider more.

There are a variety of potential injuries from a car accident that you may suffer from, including:

• Backpain
• Whiplash
• Neck Pain
• Shoulder Pain
• Concussion
• Dizziness (Vestibular Disorders)
• Knee and Hip Pain
• Jaw Pain (TMD)

• Whiplash after auto accidents is a very common injury and can happen with both high speed collisions and at speeds as low as 10 km/hr.
• Hip and Knee Pain occurs after a collision, due to dashboard impact or trauma your body is put through. The slamming and jarring your body experiences during the crash can misalign your whole body.
• Shoulder Pain is also a common injury that may occur as part of your accident. This has the
• potential to lead to extreme pain in the three (3) bones that make up the shoulder. Torn Rotator Cuffs, Pinched Nerves, and dislocation of a collar bone are some of the common shoulder injuries along with painful ribs and breastbone due to seat belt pressure during impact.
• Back pain can be crippling at the best of times, but it can be unbearable after an accident. We want to get you back to walking upright as soon as possible, without pain. We ensure you get the right treatment plan for your back, so you can stop hunching over.

In Chinook Rehab Centre clinic, we understand how important it’s to recover after something major that affected your life and it’s our responsibility to take care of our patients and to provide the best treatment plan, that may help to induce back to your regular activities and live your life with no pain!

Our team including our registered physiotherapist and all other registered health providers has everything and even more, you need to reach the highest possible physical recovery.

We invest an enormous amount of time and strength in our knowledge. Obviously, we do not omit our clinic and our equipment with attention. We invest in every small piece here in Chinook Rehab Centre, so we can provide the best care that you can ever get. Your recovery is and always is going to be our priority. It is our main goal to give you record-breaking physical improvement.

We go above and beyond to provide the best care you can get. Our main desire is to provide excellent physiotherapy for you. We educate our patients and their family about every treatment and aftercare. We are happy to provide you with all information you need, that will help you with your brain injury recovery.

The most common injuries after a car crash may occur are upper spine and neck damage. Also, there is a chance of a lot of other symptoms take place:

• Headaches
• Leg or/and arm pain
• Muscle or/and joint pain

This kind of symptom usually appears when the vertebral joints and associated muscles and nerves are exposed to unusual forces and movements that are followed even within the first 10 days of a car accident. Sometimes pain and inflexibility may appear only after 7 to 10 days after an accident or even 2-3 months. We always recommend not postponing but getting help as soon as possible. For most people after a car accident, pain from spinal damage gradually decreases. But there is a chance that the discomfort can reappear over 6-18 months. We can not say right away how long it would take to get back to all the activities you used to, but with every appointment, we are improving and treating your injuries. We are applying tremendous effort for you to go back to enjoying your regular life even more.

After your 21 visits or over 90 days after the accident:

The billing process changes after your physiotherapist request additional treatment when your 21 visits have been completed, or you have attained your 90 days.

As per Alberta law, you must use and exhaust your own extended health care benefits before your motor vehicle insurance will pay for your treatments. If you don’t have extended health care benefits, the billing will directly go towards car insurance and not from you.

Extended health benefits can be:

• your own
• your spouse/partner’s plan
• parent plan (below 18 years of age)

Your physiotherapist and adjustor will interact with each other. When the physiotherapist requests an extension of treatments, he will inform you of how many visits were appealed. If he requested more massage therapy, the insurance company will only pay $350 on top of what your benefits will cover. This amount will only be paid once. Chiropractic care will be covered 1000$, and acupuncture 350$, as well. If you have any questions about the process or compensation, they should be directed to your adjuster.

From the date of the accident, there is a 2-year interval to re-open the claim and come back for treatment. You must provide that you have not got a monetary settlement. If you received a monetary settlement to close the claim, then this 2-year rule is no longer valid. Your adjustor can still approve treatments for 2 years on a prior request before settlement if you still have symptoms from the accident.

If you notice during some time after finishing all initial treatments within 90 days after the accident, that the pain from the accident has returned or is getting worse, you must contact your adjustor and let them know you want/need to go back to physiotherapy. We will need all the information about your claim documented from the beginning in your file. This type of situation is now considered “out of protocol” and the following regulations apply.

• Our clinic contacting your insurance company to request payment for another assessment and to get approval for billing
• The physiotherapist will evaluate your injuries and recommend a treatment plan
• A treatment plan will be sent to your adjustor for approval.

For follow-up treatments, we will have to use your personal benefits first, and then we

can bill the remainder to your insurance company.

You always have the right (Client Autonomy) to choose where you want to receive your treatment. If you have been going or been recommended to another clinic but want to move to ours there some rules/steps that you must follow:

• You must inform your adjustor about your wish to change clinics.
• You will need to inform us how many treatments you have received, or we can contact your adjustor or previous clinic.
• We may ask for all your information from the previous clinic, or we can help you to get your

files by contacting them with your consent.

Date of Accident – within 90 days after the accident:

Absolutely all injuries must be reported to your motor vehicle insurance preferably within 7 days after the accident. In Alberta, the insurance that must pay for your treatments is the insurance company that covers the vehicle you were in during the accident.

Here at Chinook Rehab Centre, we would ask you to provide us with the name of your insurance company, claim number, and name and full contact information of your adjuster.  After you provided us with all that information, you would need to fill AB-1 form which must be submitted to your insurance company within 10 days of the accident. We will provide you with this form if you do not have one yet. You can download the form here and fill it out before you come to the clinic to save time:  https://www.alberta.ca/insurance-forms.aspx

A physiotherapist, chiropractor, or physician is required as the first reporter to assess you and recommend a treatment plan for your injuries. Sooner or later during one of your visits, your physiotherapist may also recommend massage therapy for your injuries in addition to the physiotherapy treatment. Together with the massage therapist, they will discuss the treatment plan to work towards your common goals for recovery.

The first visit will be an assessment and treatment performed by our physiotherapist. Usually, we can directly bill your motor vehicle insurance for your treatments within the first 9 days of your accident. Your injury will be classified by the physiotherapist as a sprain/strain or Whiplash-associated disorder (WAD). There is WAD 1, WAD 2, WAD 3, or WAD 4 depending on the extent of the injury. WAD 2s are the most common for any injuries involving the neck, mid-back, or lower back. After your assessment report will be written and then sent to your adjuster, so treatment can start right away.

Under Alberta legislation for “In Protocol WAD 2” you are eligible for 21 visits to use within 90 days after the accident. This can include physiotherapy, chiropractic, and massage. The first 7 visits (Physiotherapy and massage) are billed at a single full rate. After the initial 7 visits (of physio and massage combined) billed time of each physiotherapy visit decreases in half according to Alberta legislation. That means two physiotherapy visits are booked together. You will get the same amount of treatment time so your physiotherapist would be able to treat all your injuries. That is our goal to get you better as quickly as possible. This means that after your first 7 visits, every next one counts as 2 in the direction of your 21-visit total. You have 90 days to use these 21 treatments so even if you haven’t used the full 21 but your 90 days are up, this is the end of your “in-protocol” treatment. After 21 visits or 90 days, you are now considered “out of protocol”.

Come or call our clinic today, and you will get the most excellent care. You will be diagnosed during the first assessment. We will send all the documents on your behalf, so we can start your treatment as soon as possible. Chinook Rehab Center is one of the top clinics in Calgary.

Your health works for you – we are working for your well-being!

At Chinook Rehab Centre Physiotherapy, your initial car accident rehab assessment will take approximately 1 hour. We begin by reviewing your condition, taking an evaluation of your medical history, and an examination. Reviewing your medical history during the initial meeting will allow us to verify your symptoms and develop the right treatment plan for you. Keep it mind that it is important to get checked even within the first 10 days of a car accident.

These treatments can include a variety of options such as Chiropractic, Acupuncture, and Physiotherapy.

With the right plan in place for your car accident rehab, we will get you back on your feet. Most of our physiotherapy treatments are done by hand, not the machine. This allows our staff to ensure you are getting the right-hand pressure and adjustments, soft tissue and joint mobilizations, trigger point release, and actively releasing muscles combined with trigger and tender points where you need them most. We send plenty of home exercises with videos, but the passive mobilization of stiff joints combined with actively releasing muscles improves the ROM of joints helping the spine to reduce impingement and improve functional lifting by transferring load appropriately on spinal joints.