I was home and not working for almost six months.  My employer offered disability insurance and a leave of absence program that partially paid my salary, but required paperwork from my doctor.

Keeping on top of the disability insurance paperwork was quite a task - it required periodic updates from my doctor on my progress & the doctors office wasn't always prompt about doing them or getting things done and faxed to the proper place.

After lots of trial and error, here's what I learned about how to keep things running smoothly

• I needed to understand exactly what the deadline was for the next round of disability insurance paperwork
• Where possible, I gave the paperwork to my doctor with everything I could fill out myself completed at least a week before the deadline
• I touched base with the doctor (either in person or on the phone) to talk with them about next steps for my care & to estimate how much longer I would be out - this helped avoid them generically filling in "two weeks" and therefore reduced the amount of repeated paperwork
• I gave the doctor's office a pre-filled fax form with the correct contact information at the disability insurance company and at my employer's coordinator
• I asked the doctor to fax or mail me a completed copy of the paperwork (providing a fax cover sheet or a pre-stamped, pre-addressed envelope as appropriate)
• I also asked the doctor's office to call me when they'd completed the disability paperwork, and then I called the insurance company to make sure they'd received it

I have no relationship with the solutions I describe and created this site purely to inspire others to go take control of their own back care and to provide some ideas of treatments to discuss with your doctor.  If you find this website useful, please add a link to it from your website or blog.