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Current American Medical Association Guidelines for Evaluating Musculoskeletal Impairment at Maximum Medical Improvement

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Handbook of Musculoskeletal Pain and Disability Disorders in the Workplace

Abstract

Physicians, regardless of their specialty, from time to time may face a request from their patients to fill out a form or write a letter certifying an impairment or disability and resulting in some benefits including absence from work. However, the practice of impairment and disability assessment is rarely, if ever, a part of their formal medical or postgraduate training. Indeed, most physicians feel unprepared when asked to perform these evaluations, and a majority of them write their opinions on a subjective basis with little or no objective foundation.

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Correspondence to Robert Rondinelli M.D., Ph.D. .

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Rondinelli, R., Ranavaya, M. (2014). Current American Medical Association Guidelines for Evaluating Musculoskeletal Impairment at Maximum Medical Improvement. In: Gatchel, R., Schultz, I. (eds) Handbook of Musculoskeletal Pain and Disability Disorders in the Workplace. Handbooks in Health, Work, and Disability. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-0612-3_17

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