Why It’s Important You Keep Your Personal Injury Lawyer Updated About Your Health

After a personal or work injury, the goal of the compensation process is to help you return to a pre-injury level of fitness while also compensating you for any medical expenses or potential lost income you incur along the way. Your doctor and your medical care team will help you make the physical recovery, while your attorney will help with your financial recovery. However, your lawyer and your doctor aren’t always in contact about your status, and your lawyer isn’t a mind reader. If they aren’t aware about health conditions or changes to your care, they may not be able to get you the fairest injury award. That’s why it’s so important that you keep your lawyer in the loop about all of your medical issues related to your injury case.

Keeping Your Lawyer Informed Of Your Health

As we noted in the introduction, we don’t have the ability to read minds, although if we did our job would be a heck of a lot easier! We’ll most likely have access to your IME or Independent Medical Exam, but we may not be informed every time you head in for a follow up appointment or attend a physical therapy session. However, these follow up appointments are critical for your health and your treatment. Your physician and your therapy team will often adjust treatment or recommend new strategies, and while it’s great that they are adjusting your care plan to suit your individual needs, your lawyer needs to be made aware of these changes.

You don’t need to email your lawyer after every single therapy session or follow up appointment, but if anything changes or you have a setback, it’s imperative they know, because it can affect your claim. We don’t need to be apprised for our benefit, we need to be kept in the loop for your benefit. That’s because we are basing our compensation formula based on the known injuries you suffered. If we believe you suffered whiplash, but after a few medical appointments it’s revealed that you actually have a herniated disc in your neck, we need to know because we’ll have to demand more money for your injuries from the insurance company.

But we don’t just want to know if things get worse, we also want to know if you’ve fully recovered or reached what’s known as maximum medical improvement. This doesn’t mean you won’t be able to collect any more compensation, but it gives your lawyer the ability to evaluate the totality of your case and push for a clear award sum. This will help put a bow on your case and get any final payments or settlements from the insurance company. We know that you’re probably interested in putting this whole situation behind you, but your case could drag on if you don’t keep your lawyer updated about any improvements you make. Trying to milk an injury in order to collect more compensation can backfire spectacularly and leave you owing money, so don’t try to hide that you’ve made health improvements either.

At the end of the day, it is your responsibility to keep your lawyer updated about changes to your health. We have no issue reaching out to your doctor or physical therapist on your behalf to get more information, but we’re not going to do that unless we believe they have new information for us, and we rely on you to let us know if we need to update our understanding of your health. With smartphones and texting ability, it’s very easy to take a couple minutes and send your lawyer a quick update about your case, or you can just call and leave a message. This way they put together the most accurate claim and can work to get you every penny you deserve.

So if you have been injured at work or suffered a personal injury and you’re interested in receiving care and earning compensation, reach out to Dean and the team at Margolis Law Office. We can walk you through the necessary steps and get the ball rolling on your claim. Just make sure you keep us updated about any changes to your health! For more information or for assistance with your case, reach out to Margolis Law Office today at (952) 230-2700.