Important Advice to Your Patients Involved in a Lawsuit

When injured and involved in a legal case, it is extremely important for patients to select the proper treating doctors who will not only provide excellent care but will cooperate with the legal aspects as well. In my opinion, Chiropractic physicians are perfect fact and medical witnesses to help win personal injury cases.

Too often, an accident victim will treat with doctors that neither have the time or interest in identifying,  treating, and documenting injuries that will meet the requirements to break New Jersey’s limitation on lawsuit threshold. Too often allopathic physicians fail to adequately document a patient’s harms and losses, which ultimately reduces the financial damages available to a patient.

Treating physicians need to recognize that once they treat an accident victim, whether it be from a car crash or slip and fall, as their treating physician they need an understanding of how they can help their injured patient legally, as well as medically. Quality legal representation often results in a better legal outcome.   Injury lawyers fully comprehend the link between patient care and legal outcome and have no problem making physician referrals to qualified physicians. Physicians need to understand that they too should look out for a patient’s legal interests while attending to their medical needs. For that reason, it is appropriate for a physician to refer their injured patients to a reputable law firm with a proven track record that will increase the odds of winning their personal injury case. In today’s world, ai provides insurance adjusters with all kinds of statistics regarding a lawyer’s experience, average settlements, and willingness to go to trial. A poorly rated lawyer may justify a stingy settlement offer while a reputable trial lawyer and their firm may justify a higher settlement that will make the client whole and satisfy all outstanding medical bills and liens. Referrals to physicians and attorneys should be solely made on the best interests of the patient and client criteria.

To that end, a physician should always discuss any major decisions with their patients’ lawyer especially when referring a patient to a specialist, because many doctors and other medical providers do not understand the technical requirements of the New Jersey Courts. Also, there may be limited medical insurance, PIP coverage or statutory liens that will reduce the net settlement proceeds to a client. These legal requirements include specific language requirements in expert reports.

Physicians motivated to help patients with a lawsuit should consider these valuable tips to share with their patients to help assure a positive outcome.

1. Advise a patient that previous accidents or injuries and medical conditions will not necessarily damage their case. Under the current law in NJ, in certain circumstances, if a pre-existing unknown injury or medical condition is aggravated by an accident, it may add additional value to a case.
2. Identify all prior injuries and medical conditions that may have been aggravated by their recent injury and document the difference, amount and frequency of current vs. prior pain.
3. Patients should be encouraged to provide any and all records and scans of previous MRI or CT scans in their possession to provide to the Chiropractic physician to review, compare, if necessary, and forward to other interested medical providers for their records and consideration.
4. Advise the patient to take photos of any scars, bruises, abrasions, and past surgical incisions to document their injuries. Visible bruises, especially on the knees, are persuasive documentation for later claimed internal knee injuries.  
5. Warn patients about the danger of missing any medical appointments or physical therapy.  Treatment gaps create an inference that a patient’s injuries were minimal.  Despite serious injuries, missed appointments can completely ruin a viable case.
6. Patients need to understand that proving verbal threshold cases require objective evidence to prove that a body part was permanently injured and will never function normally again. Often patients do not understand the distinction between objective and subjective evidence. All that is needed is to just prove at least one permanent injury. Even though a patient’s injury lawyer may advise them of this requirement, it is important that their physicians be aware of the permanent injury requirement.    MRI or CT scans are the objective tests that will overcome the threshold issue.
7. If the patient continues to experience pain despite chiropractic care, an immediate referral should be made to a pain management allopathic or osteopathic physician to prescribe medication while you continue to treat them with chiropractic care. If medication is prescribed, advise the patient to keep all of the pill bottles to be used as future evidence.
8. If epidural injections are scheduled, call their attorney to determine if there is sufficient medical and liability coverage and if such medical coverage is subject to repayment, such as Medicare, Medicaid and ERISA insurance plans.
9. If as a physician, you do not have confidence in a patient’s attorney, you should suggest that they seek a second opinion with an attorney that is exclusively a personal injury attorney. Too often lawyers do not appreciate the gravity of a “mere” soft tissue injury, while more experienced attorneys may.
10. Advise patients that they should tell you about loss of income and physical activities they can no longer do by reason of their injuries so that you can document and associate those physical losses with their accident.