Car Accident Physical Therapy Settlement

Car accidents are extremely stressful. The initial panic followed by uncertainties about how to handle the first steps to recovery are enough to send anyone into a tailspin of worry. Injuries with lengthy recovery periods are not uncommon.

Unfortunately, there is no concrete timeline as to how long it will take to heal from the emotional, financial, and physical trauma after you’ve had an accident. Your injuries may even require that you undergo extensive — and expensive — physical therapy. It’s important you understand your legal rights and options when it comes to covering your medical expenses and other losses.

Only your medical providers can determine if you would benefit from including physical therapy as part of your recovery process, but many common injuries from car accidents include physical therapy as part of the treatment plan. These may include:

1. Broken Bones: Many people think of the treatment process for a broken bone as an immediate response to the fracture, such as setting the bone, placing a cast, and giving the injury ample time to heal. While this is an ideal situation, serious fractures — like those often sustained in car accidents — can require much more substantial treatment, including surgery. Whether surgical intervention is required or not, victims who suffer broken bones in a car accident may require physical therapy to regain their normal range of motion, strength, and mobility. Unlike more common fractures, victims of car accidents often experience significant and even multiple breaks to the leg, the back, the pelvis and hips, and even to the face.
2. Spinal Injuries: Injuries to the spine can cause extreme pain and significantly degrade your quality of life. In some cases, spinal injuries that might have been temporary become permanent because of a lack of appropriate and immediate treatment. Physical therapy can not only help victims regain mobility, but the exercises they engage in guided by their medical providers can strengthen the muscles along the neck, spine, and other parts of the body to reduce the burden on the injured areas. This can result in less pain and an increased quality of life.
3. Whiplash: One specific kind of neck injury — whiplash — is often misunderstood as an expected and completely harmless car accident injury. While whiplash can heal over time on its own, it can also be quite serious. Because the neck area is so prone to injury from the forceful “whipping” motion of a car accident, it does not take a severe accident for a significant whiplash injury to occur. This is one reason that victims of car accidents should seek medical attention right away and, if physical therapy exercises are deemed necessary, follow through with it. Sometimes, people mistakenly believe that immobilization is the best treatment for whiplash, but too much rest for the injured areas can actually make whiplash recovery worse.

When injuries do require surgical intervention, physical therapy is often part of the surgical recovery process — and not just the healing of the injured area. Whether you need to undergo a spinal repair procedure or have had surgery for a ruptured spleen, engaging in safe, medically appropriate physical activity after surgery is a crucial part of reaching maximum healing, including:

• Reducing pain
• Lessening stress
• Improving mobility
• Preventing re-injury
• Minimizing scar tissue
• Decreasing secondary risks
• Increasing flexibility

However medically necessary, many people avoid physical therapy because of the financial impact.

Car accident settlements are intended to help victims of careless, reckless, or negligent drivers recover the damages they suffered as a result of the accident.

Of course, there are a number of factors that impact the long-term quality of life experienced by people who have suffered severe injuries; however, some studies — including one published in the Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine — indicate that interventions aimed at promoting physical activity are the single most impactful predictor of a positive quality of life.

One of the primary ways that securing financial compensation through verdict or settlement helps victims is by covering the cost of the kinds of medical treatments that allow them to reach their maximum physical potential, such as physical therapy, but treating these injuries can be an intensive process, requiring a significant amount of care over a long period of time. For these reasons, it’s also an incredibly expensive process. Some spinal injuries, such as high cervical injuries, which can result in quadriplegia, can cost over a million dollars in the first year alone.

Even if your injuries are not as severe as paralysis, there can still be additional costs associated with getting the medical care you need that too often end up preventing people from seeking the right medical treatment. Physical therapy is a regular process, which means a series of regular financial burdens:

• Physical therapy visits
• Repeat diagnostic imaging
• Transportation to and from visits
• Missed work for physical therapy visits
• Childcare or other caregiver costs

To add to the burden of the cost of care, victims of car accidents may find themselves fighting with their auto or even medical insurance companies over the coverage of physical therapy treatments. Insurance companies are notorious for paying out as little as possible in order to keep their profit margins high, and they certainly are not volunteering to cover the indirect costs associated with getting the treatment you need.

This is why it is important to enlist the support of an experienced legal team to help you review your options and, when necessary, file a lawsuit with the intention of getting your case in front of a jury that will understand the importance of a fair verdict.

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