When a fracture needs more than a cast, surgeons reach for hardware — and ‘open reduction internal fixation’ enters your vocabulary along with plates, screws, and rods. This guide merges our hardware explainers into one: what the surgery involves, what recovery actually looks like, and why hardware transforms a claim’s value.
The Procedures
- ORIF: the fracture is surgically exposed, realigned (reduction), and fixed with plates and screws (fixation) — MedlinePlus covers the procedure family.
- Intramedullary rods: for long bones — femur, tibia — a rod driven through the bone’s marrow canal becomes an internal splint, often permanent.
- What both mean: implanted metal, surgical scars, and a recovery measured in weight-bearing milestones rather than weeks.
Recovery — the Honest Version
Months of restricted weight-bearing and therapy; hardware that aches in cold, sets off detectors, and sometimes demands removal surgery later; and the long-horizon risks — nonunion, infection, and post-traumatic arthritis where fractures crossed joints. ‘The bone healed’ and ‘I’m recovered’ are different sentences.
What Hardware Does to a Claim
It objectifies severity — no adjuster argues with an X-ray full of titanium — and it opens damages categories casual fractures lack: the surgeries themselves, projected removal, permanent hardware complications, scarring, and the arthritis future, all valued before settlement or never. Hardware cases are the definition of don’t-settle-early; our fracture practice builds them on the full arc.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will the hardware come out eventually, and who pays?
Sometimes — removal is common for symptomatic hardware. The settlement pays for it only if projected and claimed now, with medical support. That’s the reason this decision point exists before signing, not after.
Does permanent hardware qualify as ‘serious injury’ for limited tort?
It’s strong evidence in that direction — surgical fixation and permanent implants speak to serious impairment, though the standard is functional and case-specific. Analysis, not assumption; see the limited tort explainer.
The insurer’s offer came while I was still non-weight-bearing. Respond?
Not with acceptance — offers before weight-bearing milestones price your recovery as if it’s finished. The claim matures when the leg does.
Dealing with this injury after a crash someone else caused? Call (215) 464-4600 or contact us online — free, confidential consultations, contingency-fee representation.