How Important Is It To Seek Timely Medical Treatment After A Car Wreck?

The sooner you seek medical attention after a wreck, the fewer options the insurance company has to point to a gap in treatment as an excuse not to pay your claim. So, what happens in many situations is somebody will be in a car accident, and at the scene, their adrenaline is high, and they tell everyone they are not injured. They don’t go to the hospital, and then a week or two later, they are still hurting. Even if they seek specialists and are examined and treated, the insurance company will say they waited too long. They don’t think they could have been hurt because there is a two-week gap in treatment, but that is not fatal to the case. We can usually get over that. However, the quicker you go and address your health care needs after a wreck the better; that way you take a chance away from the insurance company to try to fight you further down the line.

I always tell people to get checked by a medical professional regardless. You don’t have to go to the ER. I’ve been in several car wrecks, and I didn’t go to the ER, and I’ve been able to settle all my cases, but the sooner you go, the better. Don’t try to be a tough guy or gal and wait it out. Everybody deserves to be checked out, even if it’s just going down to the urgent care walk-in clinic and making sure that you don’t have anything serious going on.

What Is Safe Information To Share With The Hospital Treating My Injuries?

Regarding safe information to share with staff at the hospital, tell the provider anything and everything about your injuries. I wouldn’t minimize anything at the hospital. It is human nature to minimize your suffering and try to get along and be normal. So, many people downplay their symptoms in the hospital, which later comes back to bite them when the insurance company reviews the records from the hospital and sees that the client only reported their pain on the low end of the scale. The insurance companies prey upon those inconsistencies.

The name of their game is to try to devalue your claim, so they don’t have to pay as much. They are a business; the insurance company wants to save money and do it at your expense. So, it is essential to talk about everything that hurts, not just what hurts the most. It is important to make sure that you convey all of your injuries and everything that’s aching to your doctor because I’ve seen many people walk out. Then as soon as their concussion subsides or their broken ribs subside, they’ve got a torn rotator cuff or other lingering injuries.

So since they didn’t go in and make an initial complaint about it, the insurance companies try to relate that to something else because if it were an injury from the accident, they would have mentioned it right away. Essentially, as soon as injuries become apparent, you need to mention them to your doctor immediately. Outside of the healthcare provider and patient relationship, they ask you several questions when you leave or go to the ER. Once they find out you are in a car wreck, they are really going to ask you a few questions because they want to know the insurance information of the other person that hit you. They want to try to get that information so they can put a lien on any settlement you get and try to get paid out of your settlement and bypass your health insurance.

So, it’s imperative to give the hospital your health insurance information and try not to let them have the third party insurance information because they’ll use that try to put a lien on your case, which can make your case much harder to settle because the hospital will want to get their full price rack rate from the 3rd party Insurance when in reality, they probably should be using your health insurance because you paid for that and that gets you special pricing through the health insurance network.

What Information Do I Need To Obtain And Take With Me From The Treating Hospital?

At the hospital, they’ll usually give you some discharge paperwork that says what they did to you, what they diagnosed you with, and any medicine they may have prescribed. So, when you hire an attorney, we’ll get your complete records from the hospital. But frequently, if you have the three to five-page discharge summary, that helps us get started and helps us in building your file.

For more information on Timely Medical Treatment After A Car Wreck, an initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you are seeking by calling (479) 337-7077 today.