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After practicing personal injury law for over 20 years, you start to see patterns with respect to how people handle, or should I say mishandle, their medical care after an auto accident. Here are 10 mistakes people make when dealing with medical care after a car accident:
1) They don't get medical attention immediately after a car accident - If you are hurt, don't wait around. Go get examined by a doctor as soon as possible. Some people say, "Oh, I was waiting for the insurance company to tell me what to do." There is no such thing. Insurance companies aren't interested in your medical care. Frankly, they don't want you seeking medical care. They want to keep their money to themselves. It is up to you to get medical care. The insurance company is not going to arrange for it. Insurance adjusters and juries often believe that if you don't get medical care right away, then you must not be hurt that bad. 2) They hide their previous health conditions from doctors (and their lawyer) - If doctors ask you about your past medical history, you have to be honest with them. Hiding your medical history doesn't help anyone. First, doctors want to help you, and knowing your medical history may assist them in doing that. Also, failure to disclose your complete medical history will only come back to haunt you later on when the insurance company is reviewing your past medical history. I can't tell you how many clients tell me, "Oh, I never had back pain before!" Then, we review their past medical records and lo and behold, they complained of chronic back pain 6 months prior to the accident! In short, be complete and honest with your doctors (and your lawyer). 3) Discussing legal issues or lawsuits with their medical provider - The doctor's job is to treat your injuries, not to give you legal advice. Also, some doctors are reluctant to treat you if they learn you might be entertaining legal action in the future. Of course, you can tell them about the car accident and your resultant injuries, but you shouldn't get into deep legal discussions and strategy sessions with your doctor. 4) Their injuries are not properly documented - Juries and insurance companies aren't going to believe you are injured simply because you say you are injured. If something isn't in your medical records, it never happened as far as most insurance companies are concerned. Make sure your medical providers properly document EVERY injury and challenge you have from the accident. I tell clients to imagine the insurance adjuster sitting on their shoulder, writing down everything they say. The insurance adjuster will only consider what's in the records. 5) They skip medical appointments and physical therapy appointments - Again, if you skip appointments, insurance companies and juries will assume you're not injured - otherwise, you wouldn't miss your appointments. You may have a perfectly wonderful excuse, but now you have to explain things. Time spent explaining missed appointments isn't great for your case. 6) Forgetting to inform the doctor about how the injuries are affecting your work - You want to make sure your medical records reflect how, if at all, your injuries are affecting your work. Recently, I had a client who wanted a much bigger settlement than what I thought was reasonable. He told me about how much pain he had at work and all the difficulties he was having at work due to his injuries. Here's the problem - none of his medical records said anything about those difficulties. They were silent on the issue. It's hard to prove something was "significant" if it's not in any of the records. 7) Not taking the medications prescribed - I know that some medications can make you feel groggy or make your stomach upset. However, if you are having side effects, tell the doctor and perhaps he/she can prescribe something different. Simply not taking your medication as prescribed can be used against you - some will argue that you weren't getting better because you didn't follow the doctor's advice. Of course, do what's best for you, as there are always exceptions. 8) You stop treatment too soon - Most insurance adjusters and juries believe that if you stop medical treatment, you must be completely healed. We all know there are hundreds of reasons why you might stop treating, but your reasoning won't necessarily be adopted by the insurance adjuster. Just realize that if you stop treatment too soon, you might be hurting your case - especially if you have residual injuries. 9) Ignoring possible psychological injuries - Most injuries are physical. However, sometimes your injuries can be psychological. If you are having a particularly difficult time coping after a severe car accident, you might be experiencing tremendous anxiety or worse. Ask your doctor if seeing a therapist would be a good idea - at least for an evaluation or assessment. 10) Not keeping a journal - You should take the time to document how your injuries are affecting you. That way, when you visit the doctor's office, you will be able to tell the doctor how you are doing and what progress (or lack thereof) you are making. Those notes can also help your attorney when presenting your case to the insurance company. After an accident, many of my clients and prospective clients are worried about their insurance rates going up. That is a natural and common concern. Here is the short answer: I don't know!
Insurance companies use all kinds of data to rate you as a driver. Clients are often surprised to learn that every insurance company comes up with its own rating system. Some use driving records, your experience as a driver, your credit score, where you live, the length of your commute, your driving history, the number of accidents you've had, the number of claims you've made, and the list goes on. I generally tell my clients that if the accident was NOT their fault, their insurance rates would probably not go up, but of course, I also told them that I couldn't guarantee such an outcome because I don't make those decisions. Insurance company underwriters make those decisions. However, there is now an emerging trend, as reported by the Consumer Federation of America, that major insurance companies are now raising insurance rates even if you were NOT at fault. This is a major shift and even more reason why you might want to shop around for a new insurance company. So even if you are not at fault, some companies are inclined to raise your rates anyway. Perhaps they consider you a larger risk. I can't tell you why, but it seems more an more insurance companies are implementing this approach. Certain insurance companies were singled out in the report. For example, Progressive Insurance, Farmers, and Geico were among the most aggressive in raising rates against their insured clients, even if they weren't at fault. State Farm, on the other hand, never raised rates on their clients in such cases. The study also found that lower income drivers were incurring higher rate increases than higher income drivers. On average, it seems rates went up about 10%. The report also notes that 18 million Americans live in areas of the country where auto insurance is basically deemed affordable by the United States Treasury Department’s Federal Insurance Office. Certain states like Oklahoma and California don't allow such rate hikes (let's hope it stays that way). The study suggests people should complain to their insurance companies and should inquire if they raise rates even if you're not at fault. I tell my clients if they are not happy, they can take their business elsewhere. There is no shortage of auto insurance companies out there willing to insure you. It takes some time and effort, but using a good insurance broker who is knowledgeable about insurance can be very helpful. Also, a good insurance professional can better advise you about buying the right kind of coverage. Having insurance is great, but having the right insurance coverage is better. To read the entire article, click here. In most cases, after an auto accident, parties exchange information with one another at the scene of the accident. In some cases, this is done between the parties without any police involvement, especially if there has been no injury and the property damage is minor. If someone was injured, the police may come to the scene to investigate. In that case, police officers often separate the parties from one another so they can get independent accounts of what happened.
The police officers usually will collect insurance information from each party. In many cases, that insurance information won't be shared with the parties at the scene. Instead, the officers will recommend you obtain the police report which will have all the information on it. The problem is that some police reports takes weeks, sometimes months, to be prepared and made available to the parties. This can be problematic when you are trying to get your car fixed or make a claim, and you effectively have no idea who to call because you don't have the insurance information. Next, just because you obtain the insurance information (either at the scene or via the police report) doesn't mean the other party actually had insurance. According to the Insurance Research Council, about 15% of all California drivers are driving without insurance. Truth be told, I personally believe the number is higher but that's simply based on my unscientific anecdotal experience. In any case, don't assume the other party had insurance because there is a chance they did not. Why don't people have insurance? Well, perhaps it costs too much and they've decided to forego the expense. In other words, they are taking the chance of driving without insurance. For some people, the cost of auto insurance is simply a financial burden. So they roll the dice and play the odds. Also, some folks don't have insurance because they forgot to pay their premium on time. In the meantime, they later find out their insurance policy had been canceled due to nonpayment of premium. Also, perhaps the driver was engaged in fraud or deception with their company. I once had a case once where the responsible driver and his passenger decided to switch seats before the police arrived. Apparently, he wasn't supposed to be driving and he was concerned the police would catch him in the act. Well, since they changed seats and gave the insurance company false information, the insurance company later decided NOT to cover them for the accident since they had lied to the company about who was driving. In some cases, coverage may not be available if the person was engaged in a commercial activity. For example, I had a case once where the responsible party was delivering a pizza for a local pizza restaurant. He had the pizzeria sign on his own personal vehicle. The insurance company decided not to cover him because he was engaged in a commercial activity (delivering pizzas), an commercial activities were prohibited by his policy. His insurance policy only covered him for personal use of his vehicle - not commercial use. Sometimes, insurance coverage is pulled if they find out the person driving wasn't supposed to be driving that particular car - he or she was an excluded driver on the policy. The moral of the story is to make sure you have plenty of "uninsured motorist" coverage on your own auto policy because there is a decent chance the person who caused the accident may not have any insurance for one reason or another. Just because you are presented with "proof of insurance" at the scene of the accident doesn't actually mean the person had insurance. It's certainly a good sign, but there's no guarantee. VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Hello, everybody. This is Robert Mansour, and I wanted to make a brief video today to present you with a timeline of how a typical personal injury case works. The first thing that happens of course is the accident. Without an accident, you don't have a personal injury case. The next thing is you have to be injured. You could get into an accident, but you walk out and you're just fine. Then you're not going to have a personal injury case. Let's assume that you're injured. The next thing we have to figure out is, okay, the police might come investigate the accident, you might have to get a police report. You may not get that right away. You might have to order it a few days later, or sometimes a few weeks later. Your insurance company also might help you get that police report. You also might need medical care right away. Don't forget, that's the most important thing. You might go to the hospital, you might take an ambulance, you might go to urgent care, and you might get some medical care. Then at some point you might say, "You know what...I should run this by a lawyer to see what my options are." You might visit with that attorney. If the attorney is a conscientious, good lawyer, they're going to tell you all of your options. You might decide, "Well, I don't really want to bring a personal injury case; it's really not in my best interest," or, "I have a very remote chance of prevailing and I really don't want to do it." Perhaps you're just very busy and you don't even want to take the time. That's a very valid concern. The lawyer might tell you, "Listen, I think you have a good case and you might want to proceed with it," in which case you should continue going through with all of your medical care as your doctors direct you. In some cases, you may go through your own health care channels. In other cases, you might work with doctors who do personal injury cases. In any event, there's going to come a point during your treatment when you just basically plateau. There's nothing more that the doctor can do. Either you have reached pre-accident status, or you have plateaued and you're 20% off of what you used to be or 30%. Who knows what the case may be? If you have a really bad injury, maybe there's surgery recommended or maybe you actually have surgery, but at some point, there's not much more that can be done. That's when your attorney's going to start to collect all of your medical records from all of your providers, analyze them, present the case to the insurance company, see if we need to get any declarations from friends or family to discuss how the accident affected you. Because remember your case has two components: the economic damages and then the non-economic damages, which are sometimes known as pain and suffering. Then the insurance company will make an offer to us, and we discuss it, and we decide whether that's a good offer, a bad offer, or whether we should file a lawsuit. If we're going to file a lawsuit, we should sit down and talk about the pros and cons of doing so. Because sometimes you might recover more during a lawsuit, but by the time you finish paying all the costs involved, you're basically right where you were before you ever filed the lawsuit. That's kind of a macro view of how these accident cases work. My website has a lot more information. You're more than welcome to click around or use the search box at the very top of the screen to find more information. Again, my name is Robert Mansour. Thank you for watching this video. I hope you found it helpful. Call (661) 414-7100 to see if we can assist you with your accident case. |
Attorney Robert MansourRobert Mansour is an attorney in Santa Clarita, California who has been practicing law since 1993. After working for 13 years for the insurance companies, he now counsels victims of personal injury. Click here to learn more about Robert Mansour. Categories
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