Here’s something most injured workers in Florida don’t find out until it’s too late: you don’t get unlimited chances to choose your treating physician. Florida law gives the employer and insurance carrier the first pick. You get one exactly one legally protected opportunity to change your authorized treating physician during your claim. That single decision shapes everything: how your injury gets documented, how thoroughly your condition is evaluated, and ultimately what your claim is worth.
Brickell Village isn’t a low-stakes work environment. The neighborhood is in the middle of one of the most active high-rise construction booms in Florida’s history. The Cipriani Residences at 1420 South Miami Avenue the tallest tower ever to break ground in Brickell is just one of several active projects with hundreds of ironworkers, crane operators, and concrete laborers on site every day. Beyond the construction sites, the restaurants and bars packed into Mary Brickell Village employ kitchen workers, servers, and hospitality staff who face burns, slip-and-fall injuries, and repetitive strain every shift.
When you exercise your one-time right to change your authorized treating physician in Florida, you want a doctor whose credentials are genuinely hard to match. Dr. Douglas Schottenstein is double-board certified in both neurology and interventional pain management a combination held by fewer than 200 physicians in the entire country. That neurological depth matters when your injury involves spinal cord trauma, nerve compression, or soft-tissue damage that a general orthopedist might underestimate. Getting the right diagnosis the first time means your injury is documented accurately, your treatment is targeted, and your claim reflects the full scope of what happened to you.
We established NY Spine Medicine in 2008 and have spent more than 17 years treating workers with serious spinal and pain conditions people who needed more than a referral and a prescription. Dr. Schottenstein completed his pain management fellowship at Columbia University/New York Presbyterian Hospital, one of the top five hospitals in the United States, and holds a faculty appointment as assistant professor of anesthesiology and neurosurgery at Cornell University. He has been named to the Castle Connolly and New York Magazine Best Doctors list for ten consecutive years.
For Brickell Village workers navigating Miami-Dade County’s workers’ comp system the highest-volume county in Florida, with more than 8,300 work-related injuries recorded in a recent reporting year that level of specialization is not a luxury. It is the difference between a claim that accurately reflects your injury and one that gets minimized because the documentation wasn’t thorough enough. We accept workers’ compensation insurance, and for covered claims, there is no out-of-pocket cost to you for medically necessary treatment.
If you’ve already been seen by the doctor your employer or insurance carrier selected and something feels off the diagnosis seems incomplete, the treatment isn’t working, or you feel like your injury was minimized that’s the moment to act. Florida law gives you one opportunity to change your authorized treating physician, and the process starts with a conversation, not a commitment.
We offer a Free MRI Review: send a copy of your MRI and Dr. Schottenstein will personally review it at no charge. For a Brickell Village worker who had imaging done through the insurer’s selected provider, this is a zero-cost way to get a second opinion from one of fewer than 200 double-board-certified physicians in the country before you make any decisions about switching your care.
Once you’re seen as a patient, our process is built around your specific injury, not a template. We handle all the documentation your Florida workers’ comp claim requires: injury reports, treatment plans, progress notes, return-to-work assessments, and ongoing communication with your employer, case manager, and attorney if you have one. We’re open Monday through Saturday, 7 AM to 7 PM which means a construction worker on a Brickell job site can be seen before a shift, and a hospitality worker finishing a late night at Mary Brickell Village can get in on a Saturday morning without losing a day’s pay.
Ready to get started?
The injuries coming off Brickell Village’s active construction sites and out of its restaurant kitchens are not minor. A rebar crane malfunction, a scaffold failure, a slip on a wet kitchen floor these produce the kinds of back injuries, spinal trauma, shoulder damage, and nerve compression that require a physician who can evaluate the full picture, not just order imaging and refer out. Our diagnostic capabilities include EMG and nerve conduction studies, on-site X-rays, and referrals for MRI and CT imaging the full workup needed to document a serious workplace injury accurately for a Florida workers’ comp claim.
Our treatment approach is built around avoiding surgery wherever possible. For a Brickell Village ironworker or a hotel housekeeper on Brickell Key, a surgical recovery measured in months is not a realistic option. We move through minimally invasive interventions first: epidural injections, transforaminal nerve blocks, facet and sacroiliac joint injections, radiofrequency lesioning, and spinal cord stimulation, among others. Physical therapy and return-to-work programming are integrated into the plan from the beginning, because the goal is to get you back to your life not to keep you in the system longer than necessary.
We are in-network for workers’ compensation, no-fault insurance, Medicare, and nearly all private insurance carriers. For Brickell Village workers whose claims are accepted, covered treatment carries no out-of-pocket cost. The Free MRI Review means your first interaction with us costs you nothing at all.
Florida law is different from a lot of other states on this point, and it catches many injured workers off guard. In Florida, the employer and their insurance carrier have the primary right to select your authorized treating physician. You don’t get to walk in and choose anyone you want from the start at least not with the expectation that workers’ comp will cover it.
That said, Florida law does give you one legally protected opportunity to change your authorized treating physician during the course of your treatment. That one-time change is significant. If you were sent to a general practitioner or a basic orthopedist by the insurer and you feel your injury isn’t being properly evaluated, you can request a change to a specialist. For Brickell Village workers dealing with spinal injuries, nerve damage, or complex musculoskeletal trauma from construction or hospitality work, using that one change to get in front of a double-board-certified specialist in neurology and interventional pain management is the kind of decision that can meaningfully affect both your recovery and your claim outcome.
We focus on spinal and pain conditions the exact categories of injury that are most common and most costly in Brickell Village’s primary industries. Construction workers on Brickell’s active high-rise sites are at risk for back injuries from falls, spinal compression from heavy lifting, nerve damage from crush injuries, and soft-tissue trauma from equipment malfunctions. Nationally, neck injury claims average over $70,000 per workers’ comp case, and back injuries in New York where we’re based average between $20,000 and $80,000, with severe cases exceeding $100,000.
For hospitality and service workers in and around Mary Brickell Village, the injury profile is different but equally serious: repetitive strain from food preparation, slip-and-fall injuries on wet kitchen floors, and lifting injuries from heavy equipment. These conditions can become chronic if they’re not diagnosed accurately and treated by someone who understands the underlying mechanics. Dr. Schottenstein’s dual board certification in neurology and interventional pain management means he evaluates both the structural and neurological dimensions of your injury not just the obvious surface-level damage.
Yes Florida’s workers’ compensation system, governed by Chapter 440 of the Florida Statutes, covers all medically necessary treatment for accepted claims. That includes specialist care, diagnostic imaging, interventional pain management procedures, physical therapy, and return-to-work programming. There is no out-of-pocket cost to the patient for covered, medically necessary treatment.
The important qualifier is “medically necessary” and “authorized.” The treatment needs to be provided by or referred through your authorized treating physician, and it needs to be documented as necessary for your workplace injury. This is exactly why the quality of your treating physician’s documentation matters so much. A physician who thoroughly documents the scope of your injury including nerve involvement, spinal compromise, and functional limitations gives your claim a much stronger foundation than one who records a generic diagnosis and moves on. Miami-Dade County recorded more than 8,300 work-related injuries in a recent reporting year, the highest total of any county in Florida, and the claims that succeed are almost always the ones with complete, well-documented medical records behind them.
The Free MRI Review is straightforward. If you’ve already had an MRI ordered whether through the insurer’s selected physician or on your own you can send a copy of that imaging to us and Dr. Schottenstein will personally review it at no charge. You don’t need to book an appointment first, and there’s no obligation attached to the review.
For Brickell Village workers, this is particularly useful if you’ve already been seen by the doctor your employer or insurance carrier assigned and you’re not confident in what you were told. A lot of injured workers leave their first few appointments with a vague diagnosis and a feeling that something was missed. The Free MRI Review gives you a second opinion from one of fewer than 200 physicians in the country who holds dual board certification in both neurology and interventional pain management before you commit to any change in your care. It’s a practical first step, especially if you’re trying to decide whether to use your one-time physician change right under Florida law.
Florida law explicitly protects workers from employer retaliation for exercising their workers’ compensation rights. Seeking medical care for a workplace injury is a legal right, not an act of disloyalty and any employer who retaliates against a worker for filing a claim or changing their authorized treating physician is exposing themselves to serious legal liability.
That said, the concern is real and understandable, particularly in Brickell Village’s construction industry where subcontractor relationships can feel precarious and workers may worry about being passed over for future work. The practical reality is that getting proper medical care and having your injury documented accurately protects you far more than staying quiet does. An underdocumented injury can result in reduced benefits, a premature return-to-work determination, or a claim that gets disputed down the line. Seeing a qualified specialist who documents your condition thoroughly is the most straightforward way to protect both your health and your financial position. Workers’ comp rights in Florida apply regardless of immigration or citizenship status, which is relevant in a neighborhood where nearly a third of residents are non-citizens.
The most direct answer is the credential. Dr. Schottenstein is double-board certified in both neurology and interventional pain management a combination held by fewer than 200 physicians in the entire United States. In the Brickell Village market, the workers’ comp providers that show up in local search results are primarily orthopedic surgeons and physical therapy clinics. Orthopedic surgeons are trained to operate; physical therapists are trained to rehabilitate. Neither brings the neurological diagnostic depth that complex spinal injuries the kind produced by crane malfunctions, scaffold collapses, and concrete work on Brickell’s active job sites actually require.
Beyond the credential, our foundational approach is that surgery is always the last resort, not the first option. For a Brickell Village construction worker or a hospitality employee who cannot afford months of surgical recovery, that philosophy is not a minor detail it is the entire difference between a treatment plan that gets you back to work and one that sidelines you indefinitely. We’ve been recognized on the Castle Connolly and New York Magazine Best Doctors list for ten consecutive years, hold a 4.8-star rating across more than 880 verified patient reviews, and have been in practice since 2008. That track record speaks for itself.
