If you are involved in an automobile accident or any other incident where you could have a potential claim against another person or entity, and you are hoping to recover money for injuries sustained from said accident or incident, it is very important that you seek medical attention as soon as possible. Often times immediately after someone is involved in an accident or incident where they might have been injured, the pain or the effects of the injury do not set in right away. This might be due to the fact that the person is in a state of shock or maybe if the injury is to the soft tissue, the pain has not set in yet. Regardless, it is important that you seek medical treatment within a few days after the accident or incident if you plan to pursue a personal injury case.
Most insurance companies will immediately point out the fact that a client did not seek medical treatment soon enough after the accident or incident if a person waits too long to see a doctor. This is because when people are hurt or injured, they seek medical attention! If the person did not seek medical attention, he or she must not be hurt. Sure there are times where the circumstances are such where someone is unable to seek treatment for an injury immediately following an accident or incident, but for the vast majority of the claims that I see, most excuses just do not hold water with the insurance companies that I am trying to settle claims with. If your accident is on a Friday, it is completely reasonable to rest up over the weekend and then seek treatment on the following Monday since many doctor’s offices are not open on the weekends. Any delay longer than a few days will most certainly start to raise eyebrows with most insurance adjusters.
In the perfect personal injury case, a person will be transported from the scene of the accident to the nearest hospital. Following their release from the hospital, the person will follow up with a doctor in the next few days. When this happens, it is very easy to relate an injury to that accident. Once a person has a large gap in their medical care following an accident, it raises the question of, “how do we know that something else did not happen in that week that might have caused or exacerbated an injury?” As a personal injury attorney, it is important for me to stay on top of my cases and make sure that my clients are all receiving the medical treatment that they need and make sure that they are not missing appointments thus reducing the chance of having any large gap in their medical care. I will always tell any doctor that is treating any of my clients to call me immediately if my client misses an appointment so that I can intervene and find out the reason why the appointment was missed and explain to the client the importance of their attendance at these appointments.
Gaps in medical treatment following an accident can significantly reduce the value of a case thus reducing the recovery amount for my clients. My goal is to maximize the recovery for my injured clients thus it is very important to me to have a system in place so that I can stay on top of all of my clients and their medical care.