Dr. Gulitz To Lead Panel Discussion on “The Ins and Outs of Personal Injury”

Dr. Gulitz To Lead Panel Discussion on “The Ins and Outs of Personal Injury”

As many of my avid blog followers are already aware I am a Baltimore Chiropractor with two clinics in Baltimore City. My clinics focus on treating and rehabilitating acute musculoskeletal injuries, such as those typically experienced in Baltimore auto accidents and Baltimore work-related injuries. We also treat patients without acute injuries. Our patients typically present with a myriad of symptoms that include but are not limited to: headaches, neck pain, back pain, radicular neck pain, and radicular lower back pain, etc. Having been a practicing Chiropractor since December of 2008, I have directly participated in the diagnosis and treatment of thousands of personal injury/auto accident patients both in Las Vegas, Nevada and Baltimore, MD. I suppose that makes me somewhat of an expert on the “ins and outs” of personal injury.

The Maryland Chiropractic Association, in an effort to provide more value and support to its constituent chiropractors, started a program called MCA University. This program is meant to attract younger chiropractors in Maryland to attend a series of two hour lectures on a variety of subjects that they may not have a lot of knowledge about, in hopes of supporting them early in their careers as chiropractors in Maryland. The purpose is also to allow for some degree of mentorship – where younger less experienced chiropractors can reach out to colleagues with tons of experience to help them avoid mistakes and pitfalls early in their careers. It is also meant to drive membership in the MCA. I wish this program was available when I was originally licensed in Maryland!

The MCA University courses started a few weeks back with a course in physical therapy. The remaining courses focus on personal injury, med-legal issues in practice, practice building, and billing. Next Thursday I will be leading a panel discussion on the “Ins and Outs of Personal Injury” alongside personal injury attorneys Ross Albers (The Law Office of Ross Albers) and Adam Smallow (The Law Office of Adam M. Smallow). We will discuss personal injury from the perspective of the treating provider as well as personal injury from the perspective of the attorney representing the injured party. It is our hope that lecture attendees will leave with a very clear understanding of how to appropriate diagnose, treat, document and manage injuries typically seen in cases of Baltimore personal injury auto accidents.

Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab & Chiropractic is proud to have Dr. Gulitz represent the clinic during this brief lecture series. We are glad that he is being recognized as an up-and-coming leader in the profession in Maryland.

New iOS11 Feature “Do Not Disturb While Driving”

As my avid blog readers are already aware I am a Baltimore Chiropractor with two Baltimore chiropractic clinics in Baltimore. We treat patients primarily with headaches, neck and back pain. Sometimes these patients just wake up with stiff necks and stiff backs, other times they are injured playing sports, and even more commonly we see Baltimore auto accident injury patients with these symptoms. Lately we’ve seen an uptick in the number of Baltimore car accident patients that we have been treating in my clinics. I suspect that is due to “relaxed” summer work schedules, vacations, and people wanting to get out and enjoy the nice weather we’ve been experiencing.

I came across an article on the internet that I thought was appropriate for the blog. It deals with the release of iOS11, apples soon-to-be-released next operating system. As people with iPhones already know- as soon as the next iphone gets released with the most up-to-date operating system, older versions of the phone are eligible to update their software as well. Typically there are minor improvements over past updates but once in a while major changes come to the phones worth noting.

When iOS11 rolls it it will have a new feature enabled called “Do Not Disturb While Driving.” Simply put, it is a feature that will sense through blue tooth if you are in a vehicle and it will purposely prevent notifications from reaching you in a car. These notifications appear to be only related to app updates, text messages, and social media updates. I believe phone calls can still come through (to be answered over blue tooth). The purpose of the new feature, as you can imagine, is to keep drivers eyes on the roads and focused on driving rather than staring at a screen.

Apple further notes that even if a phones blue tooth is not engaged it can tell how fast you are moving and it will automatically engage the feature over a certain speed (some estimates are approximately 13 mph). Sure, many people could argue that most traffic in Baltimore never seems to move faster than 13 mph, but I am sure Apple will have a work around for that.

For passengers on a bus or other motor vehicle that are not driving there is an option to press an “I’m not driving button” to disable the feature. That way your designated Pokemon catchers and text message relayers can continue what they were doing despite the fact that the car is in motion.

Apple had recently come under fire for not doing enough to prevent distracted driving. This appears to be their attempt at limiting how many messages can get through to drivers while operating motor vehicles. It’s important to note that this feature is not a “total lockout” of distracted driving. Any contact that is text messaging the driver can use the word “urgent” and it will bypass the feature and alert the driver. Additionally, any contact listed under a “favorite” can bypass the block as well.

At the end of the day, we all share these streets and we owe it to ourselves and our fellow motor vehicle drivers to pay attention and keep our eyes on the road. I appreciate that apple is making this easier for us (I too, have glanced at my phone while driving) but it will come down to the end user to determine if this feature has its desired benefit of limiting Baltimore auto accidents due to distracted driving.

If you, or someone you know, has been injured as a results of a Baltimore car accident, and require treatment for your injuries, please contact Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab & Chiropractic at (443) 842-5500. We would be happy to get your back to feeling like yourself again!

Dr. Gulitz

Baltimore Amongst Least-Safest Driving Cities in America

As a Baltimore Chiropractor with two chiropractic clinics in Baltimore, MD we see more than our fair share of musculoskeletal complaints. We treat patients with headaches, neck pain, and back pain. In many instances these are our friends and neighbors who play weekend sports and suffer back pain from sports injuries. In many other cases these are our friends and neighbors sitting at a red light in traffic before they get unexpectedly rear-ended by the vehicle behind them driven by a distracted driver. No matter the proximate cause of neck and back pain in Baltimore, Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab & Chiropractic has emerged as one of the leaders in Baltimore City and Baltimore county in diagnosing and treating acute neck and back pain injuries.

Each year All-State releases a report of “America’s Best Drivers”. It lists 200 cities in America from safest to least safe in terms of: average years between claims, relative likelihood of claim compared to national average, number of “hard-braking events”, and it ranks all of these cities relative to population density and while accounting for climate conditions.

Before we get to the cities who fared the poorest, lets talk about the winners.

The top 5 safest cities in America are:
1. Kansas City, KS – with an average of 1 crash per 14.9 years
2. Brownsville, TX
3. Madison, WI
4. Huntsville, AL
5. Cape Coral, FL

Now for our “not top 5”, or “Worst Driver’s In America”:
5. Springfield, MA
4. Washington, DC
3. Worcester, MA
2. Baltimore, MD
1. Boston, MA – with an average of 1 crash every 3.6 years

So what does this data tells us?

It appears that the worst cities in America to drive in are in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. Baltimore and D.C., the two major metropolitan regions we serve here, are amongst the worst cities to drive in in the country. I have written similar blog posts in the past regarding the previous years All-State save driving reports. These previous reports seem to indicate the same reasons why, over and over, the same cities appear to have higher crash rates and an increased likelihood of motor vehicle collision.

1. City infrastructure – Anyone who lives in an older city is aware of the tight city streets designed more for horse and buggies than for cars. Additionally, if these other top 5 worst cities are anything like Baltimore they have crumbling city infrastructure with tons of pot holes and that can lead to swerving and poor driving practices.

2. Population density – As the baby boomers and millenials each move to cities in droves population spikes quickly without the resources to account for increased motor vehicle congestion on the roads. If you think parking in Canton after 5 pm is bad, try parking in Boston around Fenway during a Red Sox game.

3. Distracted driving – When was the last time you pulled up to an intersection, glanced over at another car, and didn’t see the other drive glancing down to look at their phones? I see it all the time. A famous online though leader Gary Vaynerchuck recently opined that billboards are or will soon be obsolete because something like 60 percent of drivers are texting and driving. I don’t know if that statistic is true but it wouldn’t surprise me. This also would account for people driving with a cell phone in their hand – which is illegal in Maryland.

4. Poorly planned or executed mass transit – I suspect that NYC would have faired far worse on this list but for its well developed mass transit infrastructure. Although I think the Baltimore LINK bus improvements will help with congestion and traffic, an underground rail would alleviate some of these problems. I don’t know how feasible this mass transit solution would be in older cities such as Baltimore and D.C., but the point is where there are people in cars there are crashes. And where there are crashes, there are injuries.

That’s why the team at Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab & Chiropractic is here to help. We treat injuries from motor vehicle collisions and car accidents all day every day. If you, or someone you know, has been injured in a car accident in Baltimore, and has suffered headaches, neck pain, or back pain from a car accident please contact us at (443) 842-5500. We will do our best to get you seen today. We provide on-site digital x-rays and we work closely with local medical physicians if you require a referral for medical care.

So put your phone down and drive safe!

Dr. Gulitz

Changing Bus Routes For Our Patients

As a Baltimore Chiropractor with two Baltimore Chiropractic clinics I pride myself in having easily accessible clinics so that patients can get the care they need quickly and go on with their lives. I’ve never been a proponent of long waits to see our providers. One of the most important considerations when I chose both of my clinic locations was accessibility to public transportation. That is, I wanted to be in highly visible densely populated areas that could serve the masses. In doing so, I made sure that both of my clinics were located on major bus routes. For years, The Fells Point location was served by the #10, #30, and the #13. For the four months that the Park Heights location has been open we were serving the #54, #18, #44, and #53. As time went on certain routes became discontinued and as of 2015 Governor Larry Hogan proposed a major overhaul of the entire MTA system in Baltimore and the surrounding communities, creating Baltimore Link. The goal was to get rid of antiquated and outdated routes and to decrease the congestion especially downtown during peak transit hours.

Baltimore Link went live on Sunday June 18th. That means that all of the familiar routes as listed above no longer exist. Instead, they have been replaced by other new Baltimore Link routes that are supposed to be faster and run more frequently. I have not yet received much feedback from our patients about how they are liking the new routes. I have, however, received a lot of questions about which bus routes will now provide access to the clinics.

I went to http://mta.maryland.gov/baltimorelink to learn more about the Baltimore link project and I found a handy tool called “what happened to my route?”By clicking on it it provides hyperlinks to each individually numbered route and the new Baltimore link route that replaces it. I am going to list out the new routes that serve our offices, but just know that you can do the same for any route if you are curious. Also, you can type in a starting address and ending address and it will integrate with google maps to tell you exactly which routes to take, and where to change, to get there the fastest.

So in no particular order here are the new routes that serve my Baltimore Clinics:

Fells Point Office

#10 – Will be replaced with City Link Navy (NV) (Eastern Ave.)
#13 – Will be replaced with City Link Gold (GD) (Washington St.)

Park Heights Office

#54 – Will be replaced by Local Link #85 (Park Heights Ave.)
#18 – Will be replaced by Local Link #92 (Park Heights Ave.)
#43 – Discontinued
#53 – Will be preplaced by Local Link #83 (Reisterstown Road) – This route used to run on Fallstaff Road but will no longer be running on Fallstaff Road.

While these bus route changes can be confusing to regular riders, the MTA has pledged to have hired extra help to explain the new routes to passengers over the next few weeks as they get accustomed to the changes. Hopefully the routes will indeed be faster and will lead to less congestion. Only time will tell I suppose. But one thing that hasn’t changed is our commitment to being accessible to our patients.

If you, or someone you know, is in need of chiropractic care in Baltimore City or Baltimore county please contact Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab & Chiropractic at (443) 842-5500. We would be happy to tell you which bus routes you can take to get to our offices quickly.

Dr. Gulitz

PIP – The Medical Benefit With No Copay And No Deductible

As many of my blog followers are aware, I am a Baltimore Chiropractor with two offices in Baltimore City. We treat a lot of patients with headaches, neck pain, and back pain. In about half of our patients, these headaches, neck pain, and back pain symptoms result from whiplash due to an auto accident. Typically these patients are sitting at a red light when their vehicle suddenly gets rear-ended. Alternatively, some are driving through intersections with green lights allowing them to do so when their vehicles get violently T-boned by other motor vehicles that fail to yield the right of way. The symptoms of each patient differ depending on their human metrics (age, male vs. female, fit vs. unhealthy, etc), preparedness and awareness of the impending crash, and their vehicle metrics (small vs. large car, etc).

One thing that most of our whiplash patients have in common is their ability to pay for their care with PIP insurance. I have spoken about this insurance benefit several times in my past blog posts. PIP stands for Personal Injury Protection. It is an insurance benefit that you pay for every month if you elect to have PIP coverage in Maryland. Typically PIP is written in amounts of $2,500, $5,000 or $10,000. The PIP benefits are meant for all reasonable, customary, and usual fees associated with auto accident injuries. This includes, but is not limited to, hospital visits, ambulance rides, x-rays and other forms of advanced imaging, chiropractic care, physical therapy, and orthopedic evaluation. It also covers up to 80% of lost wages following an accident if an injured party is placed on temporary work disability. The lost wages payment component is one reason why professionals should care more than the legal minimum amount of coverage on their policy. (How would your finances be impacted if you didn’t work and receive wages for two weeks?)

While these benefits of PIP are well known, the most important part of PIP is that it is a medical benefit with no copay and no deductible in the State of Maryland. My last blog post featured a situation in which a prospective new chiropractic patient asked if we could summarily waive his copay. He said that if we did (his old chiropractor in another state would do it all the time) then he would choose our office for chiropractic care and that if we didn’t he would go elsewhere. I told him that it was illegal for us to waive his copay unless he could prove financial hardship. Needless to say this individual took his business elsewhere. And I understand that. That’s his business and I’m not particularly interested in committing fraud or violating my health insurance contract for a stranger.

If you’ve been injured in a Baltimore auto accident injury and you have PIP, these same issues of copays and deductibles DO NOT APPLY to you. That is, from visit one, you owe no money out of pocket and you have no copay and no deductible for these benefits. These PIP benefits kick in day one with no additional cost to you. (I say no additional cost because if you’ve paid for PIP benefits you’ve already paid for these benefits).

Let me repeat that – in a complex health insurance world where there are rising deductibles and copays and coinsurances there exists only one medical benefit that I can think of that doesn’t require to you to participate financially in paying for your medical care while you are recovering from your injuries and seeking chiropractic care and/or physical therapy. And that is PIP (Ok, technically MEDPAY would also allow for no out of pocket expense in the case of an auto accident injury, but that’s a discussion for another blog post). Every month when you pay for your auto insurance, provided you’ve elected to pay for PIP coverage, you are paying for this benefit. If and when you are injured you can “withdraw” from this fund up to the fund limits, typically $2,500.

The premiums for PIP are very reasonable. I personally carry $10,000 in PIP benefits on my policy and I pay about $100 a YEAR for these benefits. I strong suggest that anyone driving on the roads in the Baltimore City/Baltimore County metropolitan area consider reviewing their policy to determine if they have PIP coverage. It’s only a matter of time until you might need it. And as the saying goes with insurance – its only expensive if you need it and don’t have it.

If you, or someone you know, has been injured as a result of a Baltimore auto accident, please contact Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab & Chiropractic at (443) 842-5500. We will be able to tell you what PIP benefits may be available to you to help pay for your care while you treat for your injuries. We would be happy to provide this auto insurance policy evaluation service to you free of charge.

Dr. Gulitz