It helps to go to your doctor or a hospital / walk in centre after an accident. If you have been speaking to some personal injury lawyers, they may well have advised you to go and have some form of medical attention ASAP if you haven’t already. It can help your lawyer during the process of pursuing your claim for compensation.
Here’s why: the value of your claim is based on the severity and longevity of your pain, suffering, and loss of amenity. This is known as General Damages. On top of that you are entitled to claim for losses and expenses, known as Special Damages. For this article, we will stick to General Damages.
The way we value your claim is to instruct a suitable medical expert to see you for an appointment and produce a report that we then use to value your claim. This report is going to form as the basis for how much your claim for General Damages will be worth. It is therefore very important!
In the appointment, you will need to discuss with the expert how the suffering has affected you. The expert will make a judgement as to whether what you are saying is reasonable. For example, if you told them you couldn’t dress yourself for a week after cutting your face, they may not deem that as reasonable. But if you broke your ankle and couldn’t dress yourself for a few weeks, I’d like to think they’d agree with you!
They will write in the report all of the information you tell to them and comment as to whether it is reasonable. They will also give a prognosis which will outline how long they think you will be suffering for. On top of that, most experts will need to see your medical notes to have a look at initial diagnoses, past relevant medical history, and what medical attention you have received to date. This will help them to comment on the state of your injuries around the time of the accident. It can ultimately help to prove your case on the medical side of things.
So I always advise people that you should have medical attention right from the start of the claim, and follow up attention if it is required. Your medical appointment with our expert may not be until a few months in to the claim. In fact, you may already be fully healed. So to help the expert make an informed decision about your suffering, they can read your medical notes and see whether you had any relevant attention during the periods you have advised you were suffering. This can then be included in the report.
Make sure you have some form of medical attention as soon after your accident as you can, and make sure that you specifically tell the medical staff how your injuries were caused. Remember: insurers love to try and discredit claims and will use any excuse they can find to try and stop a payout. The more evidence you have, the easier it is to smash any defence allegations raised by insurance companies. Your medical records, if they are to be relied upon, need to be accurate!
