Spine Care for Injured Workers in New York

Care for union members and working New Yorkers

A work-related neck or back condition can affect mobility, independence, and the ability to perform a physically demanding job. Dr. Andrew Merola welcomes union members, tradespeople, public-service workers, drivers, health-care workers, warehouse employees, and others whose livelihoods depend on physical function.

Every patient is evaluated individually. No affiliation with any union is implied, and being a union member does not determine diagnosis, treatment, coverage, or claim status.

Direct evaluation by Dr. Merola

Dr. Merola takes the history, performs the examination, and reviews the imaging himself. The visit connects the diagnosis and neurologic findings to the tasks the patient actually performs, including lifting, carrying, climbing, driving, overhead work, prolonged sitting, vibration, repetitive movement, and emergency duties.

What the medical visit can address

• The likely diagnosis and whether the symptoms match the imaging and examination
• Appropriate non-surgical treatment and when surgery may be considered
• Neurologic findings, functional limits, and medically appropriate activity restrictions
• Work status in relation to the actual demands of the individual job
• A surgical second opinion when an operation has been proposed

The office does not use this website to promise coverage, benefits, claim outcomes, authorization speed, or return-to-work dates.

What to bring

• MRI, CT, and X-ray images or access links, plus the written reports
• Prior treatment records, operative reports, and therapy or pain-management notes
• A current medication list and relevant medical history
• A practical description of the job: lifting, driving, climbing, tools, posture, repetition, and schedule
• Claim or insurance information requested by the office for scheduling

Spine procedures for work-related conditions

Surgery is considered only when the examination and imaging identify a problem an operation can address and the likely benefit justifies the risks. Dr. Merola performs the recommended operation personally.

Official claim and benefit guidance

The New York Workers' Compensation Board publishes information about reporting injuries, filing, benefits, coverage, and claim procedures at wcb.ny.gov. Questions about a claim's legal or administrative status should be directed to the Board or a qualified legal professional.

What actually happens at a work-related spine visit

Injured workers often arrive expecting a fight, because the system that processes them usually feels like one. The visit itself should not.

You will be seen by Dr. Merola, not passed along. The history covers the injury and the job in equal measure: what happened, what it now stops you doing, and what your work demands of your back or neck. The examination follows. Your imaging gets read with you in the room, the same as every patient, claim or no claim.

What makes the visit different is the paperwork discipline around it. Work status gets written against the actual demands of your actual job, in language an employer and a claims administrator can implement: what you can lift, how long you can sit, what you should not be asked to do yet. Restrictions are medical opinions with consequences, and they get the care that deserves.

Where the claim itself has questions, coverage, deadlines, dispute, the office points you to the Board and to qualified counsel rather than improvising answers. The medicine is ours; the claim mechanics belong to the system built for them.

The paperwork, in plain language

Three artifacts carry most of a New York claim's early life. The injury report your employer files. The authorization your treating provider works under, Dr. Merola's is number 189354-4 with the Workers' Compensation Board. And the treatment documentation that supports your work status while you heal.

The practical advice is short: report the injury promptly, in writing if you can; say the visit is work-related when you book; bring whatever paperwork you already hold; and keep copies of everything you are handed. Claims are decided on records, and the person with the file wins the argument.

None of that is legal advice, and the office does not give it. It is the operating reality of treating injured workers well, which this practice has done for a long time.

If your back or neck injury happened on the job and you want a surgeon who treats the claim as part of the treatment rather than an obstacle to it, call or email the office. Both offices, Manhattan and Park Slope, run the same process.

Return to work, honestly staged

The pressure point in every claim is the return-to-work question, so here is the philosophy this practice runs on.

Work status is a medical finding, not a negotiation. It gets written against what the exam and imaging support, matched to what the job actually demands, and revisited as healing progresses. Not too early, because a reinjury restarts everything and costs everyone more. Not too late, because deconditioning is its own injury and light duty done right is therapy.

Modified duty deserves a better reputation. A real restriction sheet, lifting limited to a stated weight, position changes allowed at stated intervals, precisely those boundaries, is something an employer can schedule around. Vague restrictions help nobody; the paperwork from this office aims to be implementable by a foreman, not just filed by an administrator.

And when full duty is not coming back, that conversation gets had honestly and early, with the functional findings stated plainly so the case and the worker can plan.

Union members and physical jobs

Members come in from the trades, transit, sanitation, health care, warehousing, and the docks, and the common thread is a spine that earns a living. That changes the stakes of every decision: conservative care has to work around a paycheck, restrictions have to mean something real, and surgery, when it comes, has a union card and a shift schedule waiting on the other side.

Dr. Merola treats injured workers as a defined focus of the practice, with the Workers' Compensation Board authorization to do it inside the claim system. No union is affiliated with this practice and none is implied; what is offered is a surgeon who takes the work part of a work injury as seriously as the injury part. Call either office and say it is a comp case; the intake adjusts from the first phone call.

Why patients choose Dr. Merola

Frequently Asked Questions

Additional reading

Trusted sources for going deeper. These sites are independent of the practice.

• New York Workers' Compensation BoardInformation for Injured Workers

  Official New York guidance for injured workers.

• wcb.ny.govNew York Workers' Compensation Board

  Official Board forms, resources, and claim information.