When you hire a Los Angeles personal injury attorney, we can take over the case for you. We can deal with the insurance company and everything that happens in and around the case. By always keeping the channels of communication open with our clients, we make sure that you always know what’s going on with your case. That being said, there’s always things you can do, actions you can take to make your case that much more compelling. We try to lay these out in our blogs so that should you have to go through a personal injury case, you can make sure that you get as much money as possible.
One thing our Los Angeles personal injury attorney always tells clients is that you have to follow the doctor’s orders. That may seem a little weird, or like something you should know, but it’s not always easy to do exactly what the doctor said. First and foremost, you want to do exactly what the doctor says because your health is the most important thing. If you aren’t healthy, then it doesn’t really matter how much compensation you’re able to get out of the case. You have to be healthy for yourself as well as for the people in your own life. When you put your own health first, good things follow.
Beyond that though, you want to listen to the doctor because this is one more place where the insurance company can try to make sure you get less money. Always remember: the insurance company will do everything they can to make sure you don’t get as much money as you deserve. They will go to great lengths to do this. If you think “oh, there’s no way the insurance company would do that,” erase that thought from your mind. They absolutely will. The best analogy for the insurance company is like water: it’s always trying to find a way in. It will seep into every crack, use every opening.
To give yourself a foolproof (and, to continue the earlier analogy, waterproof) way of getting as much compensation as you deserve, listen to what your doctor says. If the doctor says to do something, do it. This can be difficult if you don’t feel like you’re that hurt. Maybe you were lucky enough to have gotten through an accident unscathed, or perhaps you don’t see how the doctor’s advice will necessarily pertain to your injury. Still, you always want to do what the doctor says because that can help you to heal fully.
For example, say you were in a car accident. You managed to come out of it seemingly no worse for wear. So, you go to the doctor, the doctor tells you to do some stuff, take this, don’t do so much of that, etc. You don’t really listen because, again, you came out of the accident unharmed. However, over time, you start to feel some pain in your body. It makes it so that you can’t work. Now, you want to listen to what the doctor said. Moreover, you want to get compensation for all of the pain you’re going through now (to say nothing of the medical bills you’re racking up).
Our Los Angeles personal attorney team can help here. However, if you didn’t do what the doctor said, now the insurance company will try to take advantage of this opening. They’ll be able to say: “how much pain could the injured party really be in? They didn’t do what the doctor said.” Of course, you weren’t in pain at the time, so you didn’t do anything. That’s just one way that the insurance company can take advantage of you not following the doctor’s orders to the letter.
Another way that our Los Angeles personal injury attorney team has found that the insurance company can mess with people is when the injured party doesn’t follow up with the doctor, or when they allow gaps in treatment to appear. So, say that you’re hurt in an accident and you go to the doctor. Say you had something happen to your shoulder, and the doctor says: “come here every other Thursday at noon for treatment.” You agree to do so, and indeed the treatment is great – it makes your shoulder feel better immediately.
In fact, that’s just it: your shoulder feels better from the doctor’s treatment. After just a few sessions, your shoulder feels as good as new. Of course, the doctor wants you to keep coming in. But, you’re busy, you have a million things to do, and moreover – your shoulder feels awesome. So, you stop going to treatment. This is exactly the kind of scenario the insurance company is waiting for. Over time, maybe your shoulder doesn’t feel so good, so you go back to treatment. Then, the insurance company can pounce.
The insurance company can argue: “they must not have been hurt that badly, as they were able to ignore treatment sessions with the doctor. They don’t deserve the compensation they asked for.” Of course, none of that takes into account how much pain and suffering you’ve been through. It doesn’t say anything about who was at fault in the accident or anything remotely related to, well, anything. But, unfortunately, that can be a potent argument for the insurance company to make in terms of lessening the amount of compensation you receive.
That’s just one disingenuous argument our Los Angeles personal injury attorney team has seen insurance companies make if the injured party doesn’t go back for treatment. Another common one is for the insurance company to say something like: “as the injured party stopped going to treatment and are now complaining about shoulder pain, this pain could’ve happened from an injury when they stopped treatment.” You might laugh, as this argument can seem preposterous. After all, you were in an accident, you suffered a personal injury, and then your shoulder started to feel better.
But, as with everything else the insurance company does, they wouldn’t try it if it didn’t work. Their arguments, no matter how disingenuous they might seem, have been effective for a very long period of time. Of course, by that same token, why give them the opening? There’s no reason to give the insurance company any kind of opening to bring this kind of nonsense into your case. If you just go to the doctor, and do what the doctor says to the letter, then the insurance company won’t have this kind of opportunity to pollute the waters, so to speak. That’s not to say the insurance company will avoid these kinds of arguments (they’ll probably give it a shot) but there’s no reason to help them.
Of course, in the end, the best reason to follow what the doctor tells you is, well, it’s what the doctor tells you. You want to recover from your personal injury as quickly and completely as possible. The time after suffering a personal injury can be some of the most difficult in a person’s life. You’re liable to feel vulnerable, hurt, and worse. It’s normal to not make the best decisions at the time, or be in the best mental space. That’s part of the reason we write these blogs: so that if you read one of these while you’re OK, then if something bad should happen to you, you’ll be readily prepared.
Speaking of being readily prepared, we’re always prepared to meet with you to talk about your case here at the LA Injury Group. Our team of personal injury attorneys has seen basically everything that can happen with in personal injury law, and now we want to put that experience to work for you. Just give us a call at (818) 240-1800 or head to our site.