A serious car accident can leave you with long-term or permanent injuries. When you pursue a personal injury claim, you might not always know what the total cost of your injuries will ultimately be.
Georgia law allows you to request compensation for future medical expenses in your personal injury action. The challenge is often calculating the value of these expenses. You must prove your future medical expenses whether your goal is resolving your case through settlement or going to trial.
Do you have a claim for future medical expenses?
Not every personal injury case involves future medical expenses. You might eventually achieve maximum medical improvement, which means your injuries are not expected to improve any further, despite any medical treatment.
Additionally, you may be treating your injuries when you start your personal injury action but your injuries might fully heal while your claim is still pending. While compensation for future medical expenses may be a possibility at the outset of your case, it may be unnecessary by the time your case is resolved.
If it becomes clear as your case progresses that you will continue to require medical treatment beyond the resolution of your personal injury claim, you are typically justified in pursuing future medical expenses.
Examples of future medical expenses
There are many different types of future medical expenses. Some common examples include medication costs, mental health treatment, long-term nursing or in-home care services and rehabilitation.
Expert testimony is one of the best ways to prove future medical expenses. A medical expert can testify about the cause of your injuries, the complications from your injuries and what they expect future treatment to look like.
You can use an expert medical witness even if they have not personally treated you. The key is to choose an expert witness who has extensive experience with cases like yours and can use that experience to provide an accurate estimate of the expected total cost of your medical care.
Your own primary care physician can also testify. Every patient’s situation is unique and no one knows your case better than your own doctor. Your doctor can testify about the timeline for your recovery and provide information about the type of care you will need in the future if you do not fully recover.
Expert witnesses will need to talk about future medical expenses in terms of dollar amounts. There are several different methods to use when calculating exact amounts. It is best to learn these methods and decide which is right for your case.
In addition to proving the cost of future medical expenses, you will need to show a connection between your injuries and the car accident. A common defense against a claim of future medical expenses is to assert the injuries were pre-existing or not directly caused by the accident.
Additional forms of compensation
Future medical expenses are only one piece of your total compensation. You can pursue compensation for current medical expenses, lost wages and pain and suffering, as well.
Current medical expenses are generally easier to prove because you already have documentation necessary to calculate the expenses. Medical bills and statements showing the cost of treating your car accident injuries are evidence to prove current medical expenses.
Since personal injury cases are civil cases, you do not need to prove future medical expenses beyond a reasonable doubt. You must only show the costs are reasonably likely.