Woman says system has beaten her down
DUSTIN BLEIZEFFER Star-Tribune staff writer | Posted: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 12:00 am
Barbara Brettin was 34 in 1990 when she began her long struggle with Wyoming's workers' compensation program.
While scraping ice off a school bus window in Sheridan, she slipped and injured her ribs, shoulder and neck.
Brettin underwent treatment on her shoulder, but she still suffered severe pain in her neck and numbness in her hands. Doctors later determined she had a severely herniated disc in her neck. Eventually, they would remove a rib, too.
Chronic pain and discomfort overtook Brettin's life. She suffered debilitating fatigue, anxiety and depression - all symptomatic of a disorder known as fibromyalgia.
"Eleven in the morning to 4 in the afternoon is good for me. Then it's all downhill. It sucks," said Brettin, who still lives in Sheridan and says she's unable to work a full-time job.
In the beginning, her struggles with workers' compensation over which doctors to see, massage treatments and re-evaluations were constant, arduous tasks. But overall, the program provided the help she needed, Brettin said.
Satisfied that she was as recovered as she was going to get, the workers' compensation division assigned a disability rating to Brettin based only on her loss of movement in her neck. It didn't take into consideration her fibromyalgia - a condition the agency considered too ambiguous to link to her injuries.
She accepted a $20,000 settlement in 1999 and won a court order that said workers' compensation would continue to cover her medical care related to the injuries, which included medication and treatment used to combat her fibromyalgia.
In 2003, a case manager started denying bills for massage treatments, insisting that Brettin should receive physical therapy instead. That countered advice from her doctor, according to Brettin. The doctor had said physical therapy was inappropriate, considering her fibromyalgia and neck conditions.
When Brettin requested a new case manager, things went badly. Workers' compensation officials demanded mental and physical evaluations from numerous doctors. She suspected the program was shopping around for doctors who would say she was healthy and only bilking the system.
"They were denying a court order," Brettin said. "This has been hell. They just want to beat you down."
Brettin said the workers' compensation program has hired private investigators to spy on her. (That's a common practice. The agency has spent an average $229,482 on fraud investigation over the past three years, according to workers' compensation officials.)
In the ceaseless back-and-forth of hearings and evaluations, Brettin said she was offered $50,000 to walk away from the workers' compensation program and her court order.
"Why would I take $50,000 when my medication is $1,000 per month? That's just medication, not doctor bills or anything," Brettin said. "I've fought them for so many years. They just want to beat you down."
Reporter Dustin Bleizeffer can be reached at (307) 577-6069 or dustin.bleizeffer@trib.com.