My knees have gotten so bad that I just had knee replacement. Meanwhile I've been waiting to receive my benefits from Lincoln Financial, and my case worker is no help.

I am currently out on short term disability due a total knee replacement. I started having issues back in July 2016. Out of no where my left knee started aching to the point I could hardly walk. I went to see my personal Md, she did an MRI and xrays and sent me to a specialist. There they gave me prednisone and indosaid which I took with no relief. By now I had bilateral knee pain due to over compencating with my right knee which has always been bad but i was able to treat with ibuprofen and ice. I went back a few weeks later and they drain both knees and figured I had gout, which I didn’t. Asked for a referral to see a different ortho specialist due to the fact I was in horrible pain and was now out of work due to the pain. This was my first experience with liberty. I would call my case worker and would get no reply back. Came time for payday and I recd no paycheck. My case worker would forget my name, misplace my files or the always answer, waiting for my md to reply. Then I would call my physicians office and they had replied. So I saw the new ortho specialist and he said my knees weren’t bad, recommended a cortisone injection which I tried and it lasted about 1 week. He then did orthoscipic surgery on left knee to clean and debris which did nothing for me. Refused to talk about replacement saying basically I was too fat and I didn’t need one. This was in October, which I was back on short term disability dealing with the same crap. Continually waiting to be paid. Lincoln blamed my work and work blamed lincoln. Which after investigating I found out it was my case worker not sending claims to my work in a timely manor. In mid Nov I returned to work part time due to the pain and built back up to fulltime in Jan. In the mean time I was still miserable and returned to my personal Md. She referred me to get another specialist who determined I did intact need a total knee replacement of my right knee and a partial knee replacement of my left knee. He suggested trying the cortisone in my left knee again but not the right due to it being bone on bone and would do no good. This put my surgery out to March 10th. The cortisone did help some but the pain came back before surgery so he did tbe partial replacement on the left and total on the right. Now I am just 2 months out of surgery and I am still having pretty severe bilateral knee pain. At my 6 weeks check up I told my surgeon that and he said I needed patience and that I had just had major surgery that would take time to heal. Well I am still out of work, I still have pain. I do have some good days but far and few. I have not been paid yet for this last pay which was on Fri. I have been told different things by each person I talk to a lincoln and of course no phone call from my case manager. I spoke with someone today and was told my whole case is under nurse review. Ok, what does that mean? How long does that take and isn’t someone supposed to notify me of that? Is there anything I can Do? Do I have any rights? Meanwhile my bills are piling up and have ended up taking money out of my 401k!