On the 26th of March 2008 I was in a car accident that resulted in serious injuries to my neck, which required cervical disc replacement surgery. The surgery corrected the problem in terms of how the bones were sitting and spaced but severe residual pain remained, which is, at a snails pace, gradually improving although I still have to pace myself, rest and take far too many prescription pain meds to avoid the severe pain blow-out episodes which tend to arise every month or two. This has translated to being only able to cope with one university paper at a time or a very part-time job (I am currently only medically cleared to work 15 hours per week).
The loss of my full-time income, which included the perk of having all my university fees and textbooks paid for and being paid to study as well as opportunity for career advancement, generous annual pay rises, generous staff gifts and awesome, ethically minded people to work with, was hard to take. I qualified for the state-run Accident Compensation scheme, ACC. (I did not have a private scheme as I had not been able to afford to pay both ACC’s levies and private premiums – New Zealand does not provide tax rebates for those who opt out of state funded services, it also does not permit individuals to sue due to its no-fault structure.) Living on ACC meant living on 80% of my salary, it did not include compensation for any of the addition perks that were part of my total remuneration packaged and it remained static each year irregardless of the pay rises I would have had and the increase to the CPI.
Before the accident I worked full-time and Matt did part-time, fixed-term, adjuncting here and there and was the primary care-giver for our children. That worked fine for us as for my skill-set there are always a pile of vacancies in every newspaper or employment site that I can apply for but for Matt’s much more specialist skills it is unheard of for there to be more than 2-3 in the country at any given time and frequently there are none (like, right now the only vacancy suitable for his skills in the tertiary sector has just closed – with his application submitted of course).
The job market in Matt’s field is extremely tough, if someone well established in the field applies a fairly recent graduate like Matt does not stand a chance. In addition to there being very few vacancies in New Zealand, overseas applications are fraught with difficulty given the immigration hurdles that each country must overcome – why are you hiring a New Zealander, are there no qualified local applicants who can do this job? Unless you’ve already made it and have heaps of experience, landing an overseas position is very, very tough, you’ll end up somewhere like Bulgaria – not that we would quibble with Bulgaria but they don’t seem to have current vacancies right now either.
On realising that I looked set to be out of the workforce for at least some years, if not permanently (the theory is that I will be at optimal recovery around 2-4 years post surgery, right now I am at 18 months post-op, but there is no promise whatsoever as to what my optimal level of recovery will be) last year Matt enrolled to do a one year Post-Graduate Diploma in Secondary Teaching so as to open up his employment options from just the tertiary sector to also the secondary sector. This has resulted in a fairly steady dribble of relief teaching but still not the elusive full-time position that he has been seeking since graduating PhD from the University of Otago in 2006.
Still it was enough to get by on with the ACC payments provided we slummed it in a very budget rental – our home for the past two years features 70′s decor (lots of yellow, brown and green swirly and floral patterns accented by fake crystal chandeliers), holes in the wall, ripped carpets, things like door and window handles and taps routinely breaking, things leaking in heavy rain, an electrical system that blows light-bulbs and makes them hum and flicker, replete with full-frontal view from the lounge of the very bright yellow Pak’n'Save supermarket across the very busy main road a few steps from our front door. But hey it is dry (when it is not leaking – by dry I mean, not damp), it holds its heat well and it is big and fairly cheap. The rubbish that blows onto our section from the Pak’n'Save carpark and the mountain of inorganic trash out the back from previous occupants that houses mice and rats we simply pretend to not see – the cats ensure that the rodents never make it into the house. For now this is home.
The problem now, and the reason for this blog post, is that ACC are broke and ACC, if the ACC Forums are anything to go by, are doing everything they can to get the expensive long-term people, like me, off their books. A couple of months ago I got a letter demanding I go and see a retired-from-surgery orthopedic surgeon way out in South Auckland, a good 45 minute drive in good traffic. The appointment was right in the middle of one my two university lectures of the week for my recently completed Bachelor of Law. I phoned my case manager and asked if I could change it and why this guy anyway – could I see someone else if he has no appointments available? Well, ACC got very aggressive. ‘You must see this guy on this date or else.’ They even wrote me a letter saying this and threatened me with cutting my payments until I had seen him – click on this image and see it for yourself:
- Click to view in a new tab
This made me very suspicious, why were they so desperate for me to see him? I Googled the specialist’s name and boy oh boy did I find people whinging about him – see for yourself, type Brian Otto into the search engine of the ACC forums. I then began phoning orthopedic surgeons offices. I called 8, 7 out of the 8 when I had only gotten as far as saying “ACC want me to see a Brian Otto, I was wondering if…” when they would invariably interrupt and exclaim something to the effect “he’s a charlatan”, “he’s a quack”, “he’s biased”, “he does not have the patient’s best interest at heart”, “he’s in ACC’s pocket, he writes whatever ACC want him to write”, “every single one of my accident patients has been deemed to not be an accident patient by him; every single one”, “if ACC are sending you to him, hire a lawyer” (the 8th office had not heard of him but the surgeon working there had also retired). When I searched my own surgeon’s name on the ACC forums I found a single post on the forum, very benign, some guy saying that when he hurt his back he went to see my surgeon who sorted him out and when I ran my surgeon’s name past the people I was speaking to I heard nothing but praise for his skill and expertise from his fellows in the profession.
I then researched who the best ACC lawyers in the country are and phoned their offices. They, despite being Wellington based, reacted with a palpable “oh” when I began my spiel “ACC want me to see a Brian Otto, I was wondering if…” They told me I was going to have to do what ACC wanted but to then immediately come back to them because in their experience Brian Otto was almost guaranteed to state that my pain issues were not accident related which would mean that ACC could “exit” me from their books.
I went to the appointment with Matt, I wanted a witness. Mr Otto seemed nice enough as he greeted us and led us into his examination room but I had barely sat down before he led with “we’re here today to discuss your degenerative condition.” I shot a look at Matt and then said and calmly and evenly as I could “what do you mean by degenerative?” He looked at me like I was being smart, paused a minute and said “precisely that.” I said, “I’m sorry, I’m confused, I was in a car accident, I am slowly improving, I do not have a degenerative condition.” He just looked at me in a pointed manner and then changed the subject to asking medical stuff and from there it seemed like a normal specialist check-up.
But sure enough a few weeks later there came the phone call from my case manager telling me I was being cut-off in two weeks time. Matt drove into ACC and picked up the report from Mr Otto and there it was in black and white, he had decided that my pain problems are not to do with an accident, they are the result of a pre-existing degenerative condition probably brought on by having stress factors like challenging kids and the fact I spent 5 years of my life morbidly obese.
This is ridiculous. Disc problems caused by obesity are always lower back, not neck related and caused by long-term obesity and inactivity; I was not obese long-term and even when I was obese I was no couch potato – I walked, tramped, horse-rode. Further if the cause are my challenging kids then why is Matt’s neck not sore – he was the one at home with them, I was the one working full-time? As for a degenerative pre-existing condition, I am in my 30′s with no history of on-going neck problems. My medical history shows I was on no medication at all prior to the accident, I was not in receipt of any physio or other treatment, I was fine, I had no pain issues at all. My own experience of my neck function does not match Mr Otto’s assessment.
For me the test of pre-car accident neck function and post-car accident neck function is best summed up with these two pictures. The first was taken the weekend before the car accident and depicts me riding a feisty half-arab (those in the equestrian know, look at how badly he is behaving over this jump – I had to push him over everything and he kept trying to run off the course, it took a lot of strength to ride him that day) over a cross-country course, in a one-day event, which, despite the horse’s behaviour, I came first-place overall in my class for:
- Before the car accident.
The preceding image depicts the very last time I would sit on a horse for two years.
In December, just passed, I was cleared to do Riding for the Disabled (RDA). The below image depicts me sitting on a very quiet, well-mannered RDA horse, riding in an enclosed arena, at a walk, with a catcher holding a lead-rein (just in case) walking next to me.
- After the car accident.
As they say, a picture paints a thousand words. I remember vividly that despite the grin plastered across my face in every one of the pictures taken that day at RDA – it was awesome to be back on a horse – it cost me in terms of pain to simply walk around the arena on that very quiet, well mannered, horse. It hurt to be in the saddle, not-excruciatingly, but it hurt and there was no way, no how I could have coped with galloping over jumps on a horse trying fight me every step of the way like I could the weekend before the car accident. The dramatic change in my capability to do my sport was sudden. It was not gradual and I can pin-point the date it happened.
I know my neck was fine before that woman drove her BMW into my tiny little Holden Barina causing my car to be written off, an ambulance to take me from my wrecked car to hospital, two years and counting of daily pill-popping of awful drugs like codeine and tramadol (basically morphine in capsule form) to commence (I never took a thing before that day – I avoided paracetamol!) and every single medical expert who examined me from that day forward including GP’s, physios, osteopaths, acupuncturists, pain specialists, world-class orthopaedic surgeons agreed that my problems began with that car accident. Also, the hunk of metal in the middle of my neck (the black patch in this MRI scan that is kinda poking into my spinal cord) was not there before the accident either…
But the word of one retired South Auckland based specialist, whom it seemed clear to me had made up his mind prior to examining either me or my MRI scans and x-rays (he confirmed to both Matt and I that he had not viewed them prior to seeing me during the appointment), with a reputation strongly suggesting he is paid to form this conclusion, stated otherwise and this was apparently enough for ACC.
I phoned the law firm back and promptly hired them.
They say I have a good case. It is going to cost money up front and I will only get a small fraction back if I win, nothing if I don’t. It is a gamble worth paying though as it is insurance that I am entitled to, that I have spent years paying the premiums for and I have been wrongly dis-entitled of it. In the mean time, while we wait for the hearing on 30 September [the hearing was delayed, my new date is 21 April 2011] we have no stable or sufficient income. We are currently living in the scary and humbling place of hand to mouth base-level welfare (we do not qualify for the perks – if you can call them that), donations of food and money from our church, family and friends and the sporadic relief teaching work that Matt can land as we desperately apply for anything we think Matt is qualified to do full-time – Matt has tried the supermarkets, the fast-food chains, even the gold buying stand at the mall.
Obviously I cannot say too much more about our case but I will definitely update as to the outcome. In the mean time to every ACC recipient out there, if you get told to go and see Brian Otto, hire a good ACC lawyer. If you can qualify for legal aid (I don’t) you won’t have to pay anything up front.
Want to Help? You might consider making a donation to my ACC war fund. Every little bit adds up and is greatly appreciated.
Tags: ACC · Brian Otto · Car Accident · Disc Replacement Surgery61 Comments
My heart goes out to you guys, I have a good friend going through the same thing with ACC, the poor guy keeps preparing all these submissions and going through the complaints procedure but just gets consistently stonewalled, it doesn’t matter what he says or does, they don’t even read what he sends them. He also has been sent to quacks in ACC’s pocket. The irony is that he is an OT and knows full well what is wrong with him and what sort of support he is entitled too. There are few things more infuriating than a faceless bureaucracy that is indiffernt to your rights. Kia kaha.
Pretty blatant stuff.
Luckily, your post comes up on the first page of Google search for his name.
One would think that Close Up or Campbell Live would lap up this sort of story.
Thanks for that I will check it – if it increased it was negligible and certainly not at the 3% minimum annual salary increase the company I worked for was in the habit of awarding its staff.
A.C.C. doing a Fidelity Life…
Madeleine Flannagan has a shocking story about her treatment at the hands of ACC. The story is hauntingly like my battle with Fidelity Life. The tactics are strikingly similar. Dodgy practitioners giving dodgy diagnosis to suit insurer…
Fighting Back – Exited Thanks to Brian Otto…
I suspect ACC sent the wrong person they wanted to exit to the infamous Brian Otto. Check this out: ACC Wars Mr Otto has played a part in exiting a high profile blogger, who is a lawyer, who is fighting back and blogging it….
A tragic story and the experiences with ACC are all to true. 100′s of claimants can tell you the same thing.
I noticed you state ACC have not paid CPI increase to your ERC.. check this beacuse ACC by law must adjust your ERC according to the CPI each year.
My NZ-based income insurance is tax deductible. Were you misinformed? “I had some whiplash in another car accident some 15 years ago but it cleared up no problem..” You’re sure about then? Could you be wrong?
Joe wrote: “‘I had some whiplash in another car accident some 15 years ago but it cleared up no problem..’ You’re sure about then? Could you be wrong?”
Put it this way, after a couple of weeks it settled down and I did not need to take anything for it and I did not need any further treatment and I went back to feeling completely normal in my neck area with full-function and I stayed that way for a good 15 years until the precise moment of the car accident in 2008 where as I was impacted my neck kind of popped/cracked/crunched and I felt immediate pain and that pain has never left me since.
If there was something underlying from that car accident 15 years ago that the more recent one made worse or added to then ACC is still liable as both accidents were accidents that ACC accepted liability for at the time.
As for the tax thing, I am not aware of any provision in New Zealand tax law that permits someone to opt out of paying for a government health scheme (i.e. claim a decent rebate) if they elect to go for a private one. I am happy to be corrected but at the time I got my job and then considered insurance options that was not my understanding.
Hi Madeleine.
ACC is a complete rort,they steal your money and then try to throw you on a sickness benefit after a short time.I buggered my rotator cuff at the gym(know exactly the moment).However the ACC doctor said it was an old injury and they refused to pay.
Lucky for me I had insurance but I took ACC to mediation last week ,the stupid female Doctor?.who came told me that going to the gym lifting weights is bad for your body and causes slow deteriation of ones tendons ect.I told her if she was willing to put this in writing so I could send it to all the gyms around NZ..
As I said the pricks will try /say anything to avoid paying.
Hi,
I did email you some time ago about ACC. You do not say if you still receive any income from ACC.
My experience is similar, C6 C7 fusion in June 09 after an injury in Feb 09. Then C5 C6 needed the same which should have been done at the same time. ACC declined and it was done anyway in Nov 09.
Then ACC sent me to the infamous Brian Otto which ended up with ACC stopping any payments permanent. I went 6 months with NO income. The review process is predetermined and so is the ‘Treatment Injury Claim’ process.
I am back at work and struggling with nerve damage pain.
Best of luck with your challenge. I do have a question:
Why do people with this so called ‘degenerative condition’ pay the same premiums as an 18 year old, but get refused ACC cover? Nick Smith will not reply to me.
Regards, Steve
Steve as a result of this decision I now receive nothing from ACC. Not a bean. I was the primary earner, before being injured, so this is extremely difficult as there are 7 of us in our house to feed.
I did get your email, I get a lot though and while I try to reply to everyone I go through patches where I get so behind with it I miss people – so sorry about that.
To everyone in this thread who has also been done over it is worth making some inquiries with an ACC law firm, they will pull your ACC file and have a look at everything for you and tell you if you have a shot or not and I was told after doing this that even having done that much for me they would not charge me if I chose to walk away – so that initial legal assessment was free. Most people will qualify for legal aid, I just happen not to, so if you believe ACC wronged you, fight.
Google for ACC lawyers, make a couple of phone calls, get them to look at your file and see what they say your odds are.
ACC will be counting on the fact that for every 10 of us they do this to only a couple will fight back with lawyers and given their only penalty is to back pay what they would have had to pay anyway plus a few hundred in costs it is worth their while for all the people who don’t fight back that they no longer have to pay thousands and thousands for.
The other thing we should all be doing is making formal complaints to the medical council. One complaint is not going to get far, granted, but imagine if all the people complaining about these doctors sent their files into the medical council and complained and the same select names were coming up over and over – the council would be forced to investigate.
Is this the guy?
http://www.finda.co.nz/business/listing/qtk1/brian-k-otto/
@ anonymous 10.26 Jul 7th.
Yes. No relation to me
ACC Wars and Brian Otto, Check this Out…
Have a look at Madeline’s web site and blog to read further; also some photo’s which I have not copied into this posting. ACC Wars and Brian Otto July 6th, 2010 by Madeleine…
Madeleine – I think you should make a complaint to the Ombudsmen about this.
I intend to. I just want to wait for the outcome of the hearing first.
Clicking “making a donation to my ACC war fund” giving me “Fatal Failure “
The donate button in the side bar works and the support page has info on alternatives to Pay Pal and Credit Cards. I have no idea what is going on with that link but I will try to fix it now.
Thanks for letting me know.
UPDATE: It appears I should not try to link to the PayPal/Credit Card page or it creates fatal errors.
Your sense of entitlement is gobsmacking both in terms of what you expect to get in hand from ACC and from the medical establishment.
Maybe if your husband had made better life choices your situation would be different. Instead he chose to spend a fair whack of his life enjoying heavily subsidised tertiary education, racking up useless degrees in philosophy and theology and you (from what I gather) have yet to be admitted to the bar more than 15 years after first starting a law degree. You chose to bring four(!) kids in to the world knowing you couldn’t provide for them properly. Shame on you.
And now you piss and moan about the colour of your decor or the fact that you haven’t got your landlord to fix your taps or whatever. How much more tax should I have to pay to improve your lifestyle?
Here’s my suggestion for the pair of you. Both of you, stop blogging and tone down this Christian warrior stuff. You claim to sit on a host of boards and organisations related to your religious and political beliefs: give that up and focus on spending time with your family and working. At the very least you’ll save the cost of website hosting and domain registration.
Madeleine, if you’re well enough to work 15 hours a week then do so. At the minimum wage that will clear you and extra ten grand a year. You’ll pay a little tax on that, but you can claim most of that back. Also, take a long hard look at yourself.
Matt, stop trying to get another piece of paper with your name on it and get a real job: if you can’t get a secondary school teaching job to support your family then I suggest you head on down to the Pak and Save your wife hates to look at. You view yourself as some kind of intellectual heavyweight but clearly no University or polytech agrees, and that’s why you can’t find work at one: so suck it up and start working where you need to to provide for your family. There are plenty of people who move to New Zealand and work two or three jobs that are well beneath them to provide for their families. If you still can’t support your family, consider sending one or more of your children to live with a relative or investigate foster care options.
Entitlement? I worked full-time. I paid my taxes. I drove according to the road code. We had (and have) no debt, we provided for our family without welfare.
Someone who was not obeying the law drove into me and destroyed the car I owned, put me in hospital, in a permanent state of pain and took me out of the workforce destroying our ability to provide for our family. The insurance, I had paid for, then made a dodgy move, incongruous with the spirit and intendment of the law, and removed the compensation payments I had paid for unjustly. Now I am fighting them with my own money and the money of people who have freely chosen to donate money to support me.
What is your issue?
Pretty clearly it is that you do not like our beliefs, that is your problem not mine.
What a fool. Apparently it’s now expecting great things of ACC to recognise an accident when they see one, and for a doctor to give an accurate and honest medical diagnosis.
Anyway, if running this site costs you more than you can afford Madeline, I’ll send you a personal cheque.
Yes apparently it is.
Thanks ScrubOne for the offer but the MandM domain, site hosting and tech support for this blog does not cost Matt or I anything due to the generous support of others who enjoy what we do.
Healthy Scepticism | Beware of Long Term Insurance Contracts…
In the local blogosphere two cases have come up in recent weeks. The first is Whaleoil’s ongoing stoush with Fidelity Life … The second is Madeleine’s war with ACC … Both involve longer term income payments that the insurance company was obligate…
“No” encapsulates the mentality of conservative New Zealanders… completely selfish, with no compassion for others, no awareness that this is the sort of situation anyone could end up in with no warning, and no conception of what a society is supposed to be. Go back to ACT headquarters you drone!
“No” apparently cant read or understand english text nor does s/he know how to write his/her own name. Anonymous abuse is just cowardice.
Jeremy
Its hard to fight them without money. We tried to, used an ACC advocate who was very good but eventually we lost when my husband died from cancer (it was he who was receiving ACC). I hate the way they have treated long term claimants – Susan Couch (RSA triple murder survivor) springs to mind. They use tricks to wear you down. Threats to take away compensation for one. The tactics used by ACC disgust me.
I just read NO’s deluded rants and hope NO gets to experience how you can go from 100 to zero by a single event – in this case – an accident you did not cause. NO probably thinks NO will be all right because NO knows how to navigate through life and pay too much tax. Good on you NO and thanks for contributing to my student life too
[...] Madeleine blogs her negative experience with ACC [...]
Sounds like a terrible position to be in.
Reading the comments I was surprised (pleasantly surprised!) at the amount of sympathy and support expressed; evidently it takes for one of their own to have a fall before the conservative blogosphere finds its sense of compassion.
Don’t dismiss everything “NO” says just because it’s unpalatable though – how many hours a week are you at the keyboard doing this stuff? Could you be doing clerical work instead?
Get well soon!
(PS and if/when you buy another car, don’t drive anything with less than a 2 litre engine; bare-minimum little Tokyo commuter cars are just not safe.)
I lie on my beanbag using a lap-top to blog and I will be starting profs in 2 weeks and I am continuing to apply for whatever 15 hour a week jobs I can find (all I am medically cleared to do) and whatever jobs I can find that I would be able to lie on a bean-bag with a lap-top to do that run longer than that.
Now I have my LLB, gaining admission to the Bar has to take priority because that will leave me in the position of being able to work part-time but be able to earn a full-time wage in the long term meaning I won’t need ACC even if I never manage to recover enough to work full-time.
It is hard to see what No is on about. The only reason it is his taxes paying for Madeleine is because ACC is so mismanaged that the taxpayer is left holding the can.
Neither a sense of entitlement or religious views are remotely relevant here. Madeleine’s payments have been stopped, with severe consequences, and for reasons that appear fraudulent. ACC was happy to take her payments for years, and indeed did so ultimately at the point of a gun. It is as a matter of fact illegal to then withhold compensation without good reason.
If ACC was properly run, which it has emphatically not been at every level I can see, or if people like Madeleine had the right to opt out of it and go elsewhere, or the government wasn’t in the business of insurance which is perfectly well provided privately for everything else, or if New Zealanders were given the right to sue for breach of law, then Madeleine and every other New Zealander wouldn’t be stuck in this ridiculous situation of a) paying enormous premiums to b) a scheme that is losing billions and c) have no guarantee of coverage in the event of an accident.
Just how bad does a government program have to be before, finally, it is decided that it would be better if government wasn’t in this business? ACC is a complete shambles.
As I said, ACC is a complete shambles.
When I click the link to the ACC Forum my browsers gives a malware page warning.
Pissups and breweries.
The ACC forum is showing up a warning – it certainly did not show that when I first linked to it.
Great idea taking a witness. As far as I know it’s legal to take a hidden sound recorder with you, and that’s what I’d do.
Deciding that you have a degenerative condition before viewing your MRI sounds very close to malpractice to me. There is a Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal that you can complain to. http://www.hpdt.org.nz
I had a very similar experience with a specialist in another field, and later heard from a community group that specialises in my type of injury that this guy is known for giving ACC the excuse to cease providing for an injury.
I lodged an appeal and ACC referred it to to Dispute Resolution Services. What little hope I had for the appeal went out the window when DRS told me that they were wholly owned by ACC.
In ACC’s view I ceased to suffer from the effects of my injury five years ago, despite the fact that I still can’t drive, have a bunch of symptoms, and my life has literally never been the same since the injury.
I’ve also had similar letters and phone calls from pit bulls masquerading as case managers.
This is what happens with state monopolies, and it’s made worse by the fact that the right to sue the other driver has been taken from you. This is about as far from God’s ideal as you can get: his plan for dealing with injury to person and property is shown in Exodus 21-22.
LLB = Litany of Lies at the Bar
Life only in Christ…
I had a back and shoulder injury in 2006.I was told by acc to see Brian Otto.
The result was very similar to yours.
I went to see a specialist Mr Reynolds and his diagnosis were the very opposite to Brian Otto……..a hired gun.
Four years later aged 67 I am still in unbelievable pain and gone into depression. ACC sucks.
WOW!!!
I am in a slightly different position.
I had a major work accident in 2008 which resulted in a severe disc prolapse followed by a back op in 2009. It was unsuccessful and am waiting on a disc fusion now.
This all came under workaon.
Apart from severe sciatic pain still present. I had several relapses. One at the physio’s, the other at home.
My surgeon instantly said it was a new injury and tried reverting it to acc. I fought it with the company (who were claiming it was a new injury and non work related), was sent here there and everywhere by them and they ended up somehow getting it through to acc.
To sum it up.
Work tried to screw me, so did my surgeon and acc wouldn’t pay me till I had seen Brian Otto.
I personaly found him to be helpful and informative.
After 2 month’s and Brians report. The injury has been reverted back to the company.
The battle is still ongoing and in the meantime I can’t even work.
What has become most apparent throughout my ordeal is the way that the cost and blame seems more important then just getting someone fixed up so they can rebuild their lives and once again become productive members of society.
The whole ordeal has created more problems, and higher costs for all parties.
What has been most disturbing is the lack of aknowledgement of these large organisations of the dramatic secondary effects it can have.
Clinical Depression, loss of income, sense of worth, burden on others, just to name a few.
I wish you well in your pursuit.
Another avenue is to try the health and disability advocacy services.
I also have a formal complaint pending with the Acc complaints office.
I am looking forward to hearing about a great outcome for you.
Keep strong and stick to your guns.
Don’t let them beat you.
When I first read this account I wrote to the Prime Minister, Health Minister and ACC Minister with copies of the blog complaining that if this was an acceptable way for state bodies to behave then I wanted to know how ordinary people could get satisfaction.
Pansy Wong has now written back to me 1st oct asking for contact details for you and she will engage with ACC.
mine are
04 970 8002
021 107 1120
Wow – thankyou for doing that!
My plan was to have the hearing and then pursue the accountability issues like medical council complaints, MP’s, media, etc..
Having the hearing would mean my surgeon would write his formal report disputing Brian Otto’s evidence, then I’d have something really solid to go on – also because of my injuries I can only handle frying one fish at a time!
The hearing was supposed to be on Thursday but we’ve had an adjournment. Apparently it will now be within the next 2-4 weeks.
But by all means if an MP will listen – I’ve had John Boscowan of ACT tell me to keep him informed – I’m all for it. At this point, right winger that I am, I would work with a Green MP to expose this.
Matt and I joked about taking a tape recorder with us to my appt with Brian Otto given what we’d read and heard about him but decided in the end that that would extreme. I now wish we had because the staggering evidence of his having made up his mind before he’d asked me any questions or seen my MRI’s or X-rays would have been gold to have a concrete record of. Matt and I can testify to it happening of course but you know what I mean.
My contact details are on our about us page. Email me and I’ll give you my phone details too.
We are having the same problem with ACC, my partner has a back injury and as had an independant report from a back specialist, basically the outcome of this report was the back problem was due to injury, which we have submitted to ACC, they have come back wanting us to go to brian Otto, I know what the outcome of that will be. Do you have a name of a good ACC advocate, would be most appreciative, I know we are going to need it.
Contact John Miller Law – don’t worry about the fact they are Wellington based if you are not as they can act for you anywhere.
Even if you don’t qualify for legal aid (most people do) they are still reasonable and will talk to you for free to begin with anyway and best of all they have a great reputation for winning against ACC.
Take a dictaphone with you to your Brian Otto appointment, tape record the entire thing. It is perfectly legal for your partner to do this without Otto’s knowledge or consent, though it would be illegal for Otto to tape the conversation without your partner’s consent – I set out the law on taping conversations here. And go with your partner as a witness.
Also make sure you bring a pen and paper with you so when you leave, sit in your car and write down every detail or thing you did not agree with or that you thought was wrong – do it before you drive home. Not only is going to be fresher if you do it straight away and more accurate but the court will view it as more compelling if you do it immediately. Make sure you write the date and time down next to it. Brief notes are fine, it does not have to be in any formal legal format – just write it as coherently as you can.
You should ideally both tape and write notes so you have two records in case something happens to one of them or the recording didn’t come out clear or something.
All the best with it.
Madeline, thanks so much for your quick response, and thanks heaps for the tips on what to do and etc. will update post once we have had an outcome and what our next move will be
If your partner has been sent to Otto he is being exited, there is no other reason for it.
Otto will say that it is old age, stress, degeneration not accident related.
ACC will then cut you off at that point, if you have a specialist or a doctor that will back your claim that Otto is wrong, that it is accident related and will testify to that, then you engage John Miller Law.
Do some preliminary work, ask your doctor/specialist if he or she will write a report if you decide to take ACC to a hearing and your lawyer asks them to.
Phone John Miller Law now you can get them to send their engagement forms and legal aid application forms out to you and fill out what you can without actually having the official report from Otto and the official letter from ACC so that the second you get cut off you can just add those details and put the whole thing straight back into the post.
When ACC officially inform you that they’ve cut your partner off he should request the report from Otto in writing as well as their official termination letter – we got them to prepare it immediately and then Matt just went down to ACC and picked it up so we could go through it and write up our issues for the forms that John Miller Law sent us without delay.
The other thing you have to do is keep your medical certificates up to date. That way if you go to a hearing and win they have to backpay you from the day they cut you.
One last tip, be nice to everyone no matter how peeved you are about what you know is going on because your partner not being co-operative or being perceived that way can be used against him.
If you’re only cleared to do 15 hours per week, how are you going to manage ‘profs’? When I did ‘profs’, it was 9am to 3pm 5 days a week – 25 hours minimum + homework – and it was a 12 week course. Has it changed since 2000? I’m just wondering how ACC would view your ability to cope with it.
I am doing Profs part-time, over 20 weeks, primarily online. I spread the readings, exercises and assignments over the 7 days of the week so that I can break it down into a couple of hours a day – mostly it takes 10-14 hours a week to complete. Doing it this way gives me the flexibility to work around bad pain days and it means I can lie in my beanbag and read – I would struggle greatly to do it onsite, all that driving in and sitting at desks.
There are 2 weeks of onsites for each of the two units but they are not all made up of full days, there are half day and days where you only go in for one 20 minute assessment and entire days off and so on. The provider has been really good, they let me bring my bean bag in so I can sit in the workshops in it and do my exams in it (for which I get the same disability assistance I got at uni for – extra time for stretching and pain slowdown). They have a swiss ball in the office they let me stretch on and I am allowed to get up and move about during class if I need to.
As for what ACC thinks, they should conclude that I am not content to sit on my couch, watch daytime TV and never work again. I want to get better, I want to work, I want to find ways of making that happen. My goal is to be able to do 20 hours per week by the time I am admitted in March next year and to continue expanding on that from there.
Nov 2010 In similar situation now. Very interested to know the outcome. Appreciate your emailing if you can. Thanks
My hearing got adjourned. I was told a new date would be given within 2-4 weeks. It has been 6 weeks and I’ve still heard nothing. So I am still in the same position as before – waiting for my hearing… so no outcome to report yet.
All I can say to you is that if you think you have a case, you have evidence to back up your claim – like a specialist who will write in support of you – then hire a lawyer.
I am in a very similar situation.
I was sent to Otto in October and cut off from ACC this week due to my injury being caused by ‘disc degeneration’ and not an accident.
My initial injury occured when I was 18 and I have had relapses ever since (i’m in my 30′s now). Otto’s report claimed that the original MRI’s only unmasked a degeneration that had already started… WHEN I WAS EIGHTEEN!!
Disgusting.
I will be fighting this.
Interested to know how you do.
I would love the media to pick this up, Campell, Fair Go, anyone.
That is disgusting James. If your initial injury occurred at 18 and that is the cause of your problems now then the problems originated in an accident and therefore you should have cover now.
I too want to make as much noise as this as possible for all the people who don’t know how to fight who are getting done over.
Yes we went to Brian Otto and yes my partners back was put down to degenerative problem, even went as far as saying that the degenerative problem had been there since his original accident back in 1990, apparently that was in the xray report, how can you have a degenerative problem when before the accident there was no signs of back pain and etc…….why is it that people who want to get better and get back to work are penalized when I have heard of people who have been on ACC for years and dont seem to have a problem getting help with their entitlements and etc……………….anyway I think we may seek legal advice just to see if we have a good case or not….then take it from there…..
We are left in agonising and life-robbing pain which costs us our ability to work and hurts not only us physically but our families emotionally as they have to watch us suffer. I guess if their bottom line looks better it is all justified…
Why are any of us paying taxes and ACC levies if so many people are being done over by ACC like this?
It blows me away how evil and calculating these people are. I also have ACC problems. ATM After recieving a letter telling me my five years worth of Independence Allowance (Single payment option) ended on the 11/07/2010 Before ACC can look at offering another single payment option, ACC requires a current psychiatric assessment to be completed. So i recieved a letter from them to meet with an Indian doctor/psycologist from Auckland who’ll be flown down to Christchurch and will meet me at a Hotel room? all this on tax payers money. I contacted them asking why i’m not meeting with any of the ACC psycologists here in Chch and why in a hotel room? They claimed all the Chch one’s are fully booked up and cannot see me and that it should be at a meeting room at the hotel?. We’ll my stomach felt i was being set up! But i went anyway.After my consultation not only did this doctor approved my IA but requested i see some more specialists and wrote some perscribed perscriptions down for me that would be sent to my doctors ASAP upon her return. We’ll ACC phoned me to say that i’ll get my IA every 3 months as it has been approved. But sadly the help i needed and the medication wasn’t forwarded to my Doctor. After 11 calls later and bogus excuses. Things had taken a turn for the worse I had a huge fight with my boss and left my job five years as a security guard! and after problems at home between myself and my partner and two children our youngest Autistic i left her. this all happened 3.5 months after the consultation. I ended up going into the ACC branch Northwood and demanding a copy of the forms to pass onto my GP so i could finally get some help. But because i was out of funds i called ACC about that five year option the’d promised. They sent me an application consent form agreeing to have the lump sum of IA. another 2 months no payment? I called and found out it’s going through there board hearing again and i’ll have to see another specialist in order to get this lump sum?. I smell a rat. This isn’t there normal proceedure and there’s no letter notification on what’s happening? Can they really do this to me? It really hurts to have to relive my extremely painfull past over and over. So why so many doctors?.
Hi there, yeah I’ve read your comments. I wonder if in fact you might be exagerating a little bit. When you advise that you went to hospital after the accident, were you admitted?
Exaggerating about what precisely?
To answer your question no I was not admitted following the car accident. Ambulance officers removed me from my car, I was unable to get out by myself. They took me to hospital where I was x-rayed and discharged with a whiplash diagnosis (which was later proved by an MRI scan and me collapsing numb all over at work, to be not the full extent of my injuries.)
I was admitted to hospital when I had the surgery to remove and replace the busted disc and I was also admitted to hospital following severe stomach irritation as a result of months of pain relief and anti-inflammatory drugs taken to combat the pain resulting from the injury.
Sounds like Brian Otto has been in the news again…. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10720485
And people think that foreign nations of lesser known ethnic extraction are corrupt. I work in health and this is appalling. That said we deal with CYF! The circumstances are different but the power of a large Govt agency is a frightening thing when you come up against it. I will pray for you tonight re your hearing.
I think it is time to we started to send letters to ACC Minister Nick Smith. The more people that write to him in regard to the corruption in ACC the sooner there will be an independent review.
I am not so good at this kind of thing (letter writing) but if someone could post an open letter that could be copied/download that would be a start.
Un-bloody-believable!!…The more I read about this ACC rort the worse it gets.This government has directed ACC to turn people down and get them off high paying benefits onto low ones such as the sickness benefit.This policy is causing massive destruction in the community.The long term financial and social fallout from this decision in the form of motgagee sales,marriage break ups,family violence,child poverty is going to be massive!..Even more massive than the bill would be to just keep honouring their moral and contractual obligations to us all as clents of this abominable service provider…Its been awhile since your injury now.I hope you are on the improve and have won your case against ACC.Its a bloody crime that we have to fight as hard as we do for what is ours by right.This government should be ashamed of themselves.Its criminal whats happening.
Check this out…I am posting every day to keep it up the list..I am extremely annoyed with this Govt and ACC
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Community/MessageBoard/Messages.aspx?id=692347&p=3&topic=7&#p14418760
I have tried 2 get compensation for my son who was diagnosed w cerebral palsy when he was almost 2yrs old, it is mild + affects th muscles in hs legs/mobility, he cnt walk/balance without aids. There wer difficulties w birth + he was pre term and diagnosed w talipes + ascites. He had a foot correctìon op @3mnths + @ 6mnths wasnt sitn up + had a curve n hs back. I repeatedly askd th paedeatrician about it + he reassured me it wud cum right + nt 2 worry, more visits +a year later he sent a me a letter in th mail that sed- your son was deprived of oxygen during or around th time of birth and therefore has cerebral palsy. I hav hs hosp file + theres no copy of th letter but there is 1 where he acknowledges me being upset at a letter he wrote me. My sö has had another foot correction + th surgeon said at a review that bcos he was operated on th 1st time not knowing he had cb in th 1st place he wud hav 2 hav anothr correction 2 correct th damage frm th 1st operation. Thanks for yr stories /comments + tips/advice on how 2 fight acc bcos i dnt want 2 gìv up on a brighter future and answers for my 7yr old son:)
any one who has the the unfortunate meeting of this man be perpared to have derogatory remarks about your persons his whole aim which i found was to under mine your injury and put the pain you were going throught down to pain beleif so he could write up a report to acc say in his option that there is no reason why this person can’t go back to full time employment when xrays mri and other doctors say difference he is evil
It has been almost 6 years now since my accident.Dr Otto decided to screw up my life with a diagnosis that suited acc.
I now suffer severe depression due to the pain in my shoulder which acc did nothing about. It was on my first sick certificate of 2006.They (acc) went all out to prove that I had nothing wrong.
Nope,they are wrong after a battle which I won thanks to J Miller Law.My psychiatrist says I will never be cured of my depression never be able to work again and never to live a normal life I lived before my injury.I am to now seek compensation.
I am 68 years old
Brian Otto is a quack.