Maximum medical improvement is a term that insurance companies and offshore companies use to stop having to pay benefits to injured workers. What maximum medical improvement means is you are not going to get any better; it doesn't mean that you are healthy, it just means you're not going to get any better from where you are at today.
If they can get a doctor to say—even if you're still hurt—that he isn't going to get better by treatment then they are allowed to cut you off. So, when they are guiding you to certain company doctors that they regularly send their clients to, or their employees to, they are looking for that magical term so they don't owe you any more.
What we can do at Arnold and Itkin is make sure you aren't seeing some insurance or company doctor that is more interested in putting you at "maximum medical improvement." Instead, we can help find you a good, qualified doctor that cares about making you better. We have the resources to find different physicians and ensure that in fact you get the best medical treatment. Because what I always tell my clients is let me worry about the case, let me worry about the legal wrangling, and let me worry about those types of proceedings—you just need to worry about getting better, and part of getting better is getting good care.
Arnold & Itkin represented nearly a third of the crewmembers injured in the Deepwater Horizon explosion.
Because maritime law is so complex and so complicated, it is crucial that you work with an attorney who has an in-depth understanding of how it works and who has proven themselves in similar cases before.