Should You Have a Life Care Plan in a Personal Injury Case?

Life care plans are usually debated in many families when a family member is injured. One of the most common questions we hear is whether life care plan personal injury is favorable to pursue. 

A life care plan can help injured individuals and their families secure the best long-term care possible, so you’re probably wondering if it can help your case too. 

Fear not, because we’ll answer all the burning questions you might have regarding life care plan personal injury including life care plans in workers’ compensation cases. 

What Is a Life Care Plan?

A life care plan is typically used to precisely quantify ongoing and future costs of care for an injured individual. Life care planners are certified vocational experts (or medical professionals) who have the necessary expertise to testify in court, usually on the side of the plaintiff. 

With a life care plan, it’s possible to project future costs in many different categories, such as:

1. Medical expenses

2. Long-term or short-term nursing care

3. Modifying the injured party’s home or vehicle

4. Medical supplies and equipment

5. Lost earning capacity

6. Daily living expenses

7. Rehabilitation and physical therapy

8. Medications

When is a Life Care Plan Personal Injury Needed?

The answer to this question is that it depends on the medical facts of your case. 

What do we mean by that?

It depends on your condition after the accident. A life care plan personal injury is necessary if a plaintiff suffered injuries considered catastrophic. This category may include spinal cord damage, traumatic brain injury, or amputation of any extremities.

Injuries such as these require significant future medical care.

A life care plan personal injury is also helpful for plaintiffs who received injuries that led to chronic pain or even reduced function of different body parts. These symptoms can cause a long-term disruption in the daily life of the injured person. Thus, a life care plan can ensure that the medical needs after an injury are properly addressed. 

As a result, life care planning can significantly increase damages awarded to the plaintiff.

On the other hand, if the plaintiff’s injuries are minor and they’re expected to recover within weeks or a few months, filing a life care plan personal injury to prove damages might be redundant.

What About Workers’ Comp Cases?

To keep it as short as possible, the same reasoning as with regular personal injury cases applies to workers’ comp cases. If your work-related injury led to chronic pain or conditions which require constant future care, a life care plan is an absolute must.

For lighter injuries that have no impact on your long-term working capacity, you should settle for the run-of-the-mill workers’ comp benefits. 

Who Are Life Care Planners?

For their testimony to stand in court, these experts require the necessary certification. While you might think life care planning experts are usually physicians, people with different occupations can become certified life care planners. For instance:

1. Nurses

2. Rehabilitation experts

3. Occupational therapists

4. Case managers

5. Social workers

6. Physicians

7. Psychologists and psychotherapists

If you have a particular injury, for instance, a debilitating knee trauma, it would be wise to hire an expert with a background in orthopedics.

The Methodology Employed By Life Care Planners

There’s a lot that goes into a life care plan personal injury. To help ensure the best care for their clients, they’ll leave no stone unturned while putting together a comprehensive report. 

Typically, they start with a detailed review of the medical records of the plaintiff. Next, they interview the plaintiff, as well as their family members and healthcare providers. 

The crucial part is determining the proper care required for a particular ailment, which makes it possible to estimate the costs of medical care from different providers in a single geographic location.

Estimating costs is a pretty comprehensive process and experienced life care planners usually account for everything. For instance, if estimating the cost of the surgery, they’ll also break down additional costs such as the charges for anesthesiologists, equipment, and even any post-op medications.

Life care planners also have to determine the life expectancy of the plaintiff and determine how significant is the loss of earning capacity. Furthermore, they’ll attempt to quantify the suffering and pain caused by the entire personal injury process. 

Last but not least, they usually perform a comprehensive analysis of the plaintiff’s ability to perform daily activities. What’s more, they’ll review the accommodation, transportation, and such of the injured person.

How High are The Settlements?

There are too many factors involved to provide a definitive answer. Every injury is different, and life expectancies can vary from person to person, making it impossible to come up with exact numbers. Still, disabled plaintiffs will usually be taken care of for the remainder of their life.

An important thing to note here is that the settlement is usually awarded in the present value of the costs. 

What does this mean?

Present value encompasses two different elements:

1. The projected cost of each service/item in the period when they’re going to be incurred

2. The interest rate on the amount paid out now to pay for future expenses at a different date

The idea behind this is to compensate the plaintiff for the costs of future medical care. Additionally, by using the statistics of the rates of medical inflation, life care planners help mitigate the problem of the inflation of medical costs. For example, a service that costs $1000 now might cost $1,500 in a few years. 

Taking The Confusion Out of Personal Injury

For serious traumas, life care plan personal injury is the only way to ensure the injured parties are fairly compensated for their pain and suffering. But it’s not just compensation - it’s a small piece of comfort and assurance that the families and the injured person themselves don’t have to worry about how they will cover the extensive medical expenses.

However, life care plans are not just about covering current medical care and long-term care.

They can also ensure that your or your family member’s quality of life is the best possible regarding the circumstances, whether it’s assisting with living conditions or finding the optimal care facility. 

With a proper life care plan personal injury, your family members also have a piece of mind, knowing that a loved one is taken care of in a way that makes life a lot easier to bear.