Accidents happen, but in the case of an automobile collision, the crash is no accident. It is a result of negligence. In other words, someone was at fault, causing the collision that may likely have resulted in personal injury to the driver and passengers of the other car. After being discharged from a hospital emergency room visit, car accident victims usually are uncertain who to turn to for medical treatment for their soft tissue injuries and legal assistance for their harms and losses.
Many people visit their primary care physician, who may dismiss their complaints as sprains and strains, recommending analgesics and a bout of physical therapy without thinking that the injury was caused by a mechanical failure that triggered a violent crash. Crashes often cause misalignment of the vertebral bodies, where chiropractic care makes the most sense to relieve pain. Just as lawyers must be serious about making sure clients receive the most relevant and necessary care for their injuries, medical doctors and chiropractic physicians need to be cognizant of an injury victim’s potential injury claim.
This is especially true in New Jersey because of the tricky aspects of winning a personal injury case by proving permanent injuries that surpass the limitation on lawsuit verbal threshold defenses. For that reason, chiropractic physicians are often the best treating doctors who can manipulate misaligned vertebrae into place through chiropractic and physical therapy while documenting ongoing symptoms, spasm, and pain.
Here are just ten reasons why chiropractic physicians are excellent physicians of choice.
1. Chiropractors understand neck and back issues and take immediate action to mechanically manipulate the spine and administer physical therapy to provide relief to areas injured by the motor vehicle collision.
2. Chiropractors provide the necessary bedside manners to comfort and explain the relationship between a patient’s accident and the injuries they suffered. Chiros often form a unique close bond with their patients, unlike other physician-patient relationships.
3. Chiropractors are professional and generally good teachers. They spend a good deal of time teaching anatomy to their patients and explaining the reasoning behind their therapies.
4. Chiropractors administer non-invasive conservative medical treatment but instead treat pain with aggressive chiropractic modalities during the first few months’ post-accident. This treatment often provides much-needed relief from ongoing pain.
5. Chiropractors are meticulous historians at documenting the mechanism of an injury, symptoms, and patient progress with a unique understanding of satisfying insurance companies’ requirements. They often are accessible to attorneys and quickly respond to record requests, scheduling trial or deposition dates.
6. Chiropractors understand, and in most cases, are qualified to read X-RAYS and MRI studies, and if certified as such, can give competent expert testimony in a court of law.
7. Chiropractors generally know when to call a specialist, either in orthopedics, neurology, or pain management, for future treatment or second opinions.
8. Chiropractors, for the most part, understand the legal requirements necessary to author a medical narrative report of such quality to be relied upon by plaintiff attorneys, insurance company adjusters, and Superior Court Judges. In many NJ auto cases, pain-and-suffering claims depend on qualifying injuries and objective evidence under N.J.S.A. 39:6A-8. A chiropractor’s records and documentation will support that claim.
9. Chiropractors usually make great witnesses in Court because jurors often find them credible and give more weight to testimony from a “hands-on” treating physician who has a full understanding of a patient’s medical history, treatment, and future prognosis. They are also qualified to give expert opinions on causation and permanency.
10. Chiropractors usually understand the meaning of discovery cutoff dates and other court-imposed deadlines. If records or reports come late after the deadline, the evidence can be challenged, limited, or excluded from the case. Chiropractic physicians are also usually directly involved in medical billing and can testify about future medical costs. They are on top of their medical billing and quick to respond to PIP insurance adjusters with the appropriate information required to process their patients’ claim.
For these reasons, it is in the best interest of a patient to also have qualified legal representation from a reputable, aggressive local New Jersey injury law firm that specializes in only representing accident victims that truly understand chiropractic treatment and respects chiropractic physicians as qualified doctors to serve as expert witnesses. Many personal injury law firms employ partners and associate lawyers who are certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as Civil Trial Attorneys who have a proven record of courtroom experience. Insurance companies generally respect lawyers whom they recognize will take cases to trial. That knowledge alone may result in a quicker or higher settlement.
Garry R. Salomon
Author Garry R. Salomon is a New Jersey lawyer certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Civil Trial Attorney. He serves as managing partner of the New Jersey personal injury law firm Davis, Saperstein & Salomon, P.C., and is the author of The Consumer’s Guide to New Jersey Personal Injury Claims, second edition (2025). He has lectured extensively for the Association of New Jersey Chiropractors (ANJC) and the New Jersey Association for Justice (NJAJ) on the topic of “Bullet Proofing Chiropractic Testimony.”
