A Life Care Planning Expert Can Help In Catastrophic Injury Cases
Often, it is up to the jury to determine the level, amount and extent of your injuries or damages in a personal injury case. A jury is capable of calculating lost wages and medical bills, and with the assistance of the testimony and records of your doctors, as well as your testimony, a jury can accurately determine how much to award you for your pain, disability, loss of quality of life, and other measures of damages that don’t have a readily available “price tag.”
But often, victims in accidents are so injured, and their injuries are so catastrophic, that a jury needs some help in calculating a victim’s damages. This is especially true when the victim is younger, and there are medical needs and expenses in the future that require difficult calculations.
The Life Care Planning Expert
This is where the life care planning expert can be a big help. The life care expert looks at every part of a victim’s injury, and calculates not just what it will cost to take care of the victim today, but what it will cost going forward.
For example, a victim may need modifications to their home or vehicles, to accommodate their disabilities.
What will those modifications cost in the future? If the victim needs in home care, what is the cost of in-home care for the rest of the victim’s life, calculating for factors such as inflation, and the geographic location of the victim, which may affect what these services cost?
Victims may be reliant on medical devices after their accident. What will a wheelchair, ventilator, or other assistive devices cost in the future, and what will they cost to maintain going forward?
A victim that may be susceptible to infection, or have other underlying disabilities, may find that “routine” medical procedures are much more complex, risky, and thus, costly. A life care planning expert can determine what the true cost of these future medical procedures are.
Understanding the Victim’s Situation
As you can see, a life care expert has to be an expert in many different disciplines, combining medicine, and economics.
The expert also needs to understand the victim. Is the victim in an area where assistive services are readily available, and thus, may be cheaper? Or would the victim’s location make these services more expensive? Does the victim have extended family to take care of him or her, or must the life care planner account for attendant care, if there is no immediate family?
A life care planning expert can take all these factors into account, and show a jury what the cost will truly be for the remainder of the victim’s life, to provide the care and attention needed for the victim to live a complete life.
Contact the Miami personal injury attorneys at Velasquez & Associates P.A. today for help if you are injured in any kind of accident, no matter how serious.
