Common Problems With Medical Care In A Personal Injury Case

After sustaining a serious bodily injury, your medical care serves two very important purposes. The first, obviously, is to treat your injuries so that they will heal faster, with fewer residual problems, and so that you can feel better and get on with your life. The second purpose is to gather the evidence necessary to prove your injuries to an insurance company claims representative or to a jury.

Accomplishing both purposes requires excellent doctors who are willing to take the extra time to document your injuries thoroughly in their chart notes at every visit, write reports as needed to explain how the collision caused your injuries, explain why your injuries required the medical testing that was ordered and the medical care that was rendred, and occasionally give deposition testimony or trial testimony in court. Why is this all easier said than done?

A Doctor’s Job Is to Treat Your Injury. An Attorney’s Job Is to Prove The Cirumstances That Caused Your Injury

In the day to day course of treating patients, doctors are concerned with diagnosing and treating injuries and conditions. Doctors are not particularly concerned about how you got the injury or condition, who caused it, or proving it all to the satisfaction of an insurance company or jury. Yet, when you have been injured and are pursuing a bodily injury claim, there will be an insurance company and or its lawyer who will challenge everything your doctor does, every medical treatment, every medical charge and every conclusion you doctor makes. Understandably, not every doctor or medical provider wants to be drawn into an injury claim and have every one of his or her decisions questioned.

This is one reason why your attorney may need to make a referral to a doctor who is experiened in treating people who have been injured in an accident of one type or another. You need a doctor with the added skill set of knowing what questions to ask you, how to best document your medical chart, and support his or her medical decisions and opinions. Without the added benefit an experienced doctor brings to your claim, it is more difficult to support your burden to prove the nature and extent of your injuries. This, in turn, lowers the value of your claim and leaves you with less compensation than you deserve.