Future medical expenses often represent the largest portion of serious injury settlements. While past medical bills are straightforward to calculate, projecting lifetime treatment costs requires professional analysis and strategic presentation.
Our friends at Presser Law, P.A. discuss how comprehensive future medical cost calculations dramatically increase settlement values. A personal injury lawyer knows that properly documented future care needs can multiply case values by tens of thousands or even millions of dollars beyond just past expenses.
These five reasons explain why future medical costs matter so much to your case.
1. Settlements Are Final and Cannot Be Reopened
Once you sign a settlement release, your case is permanently closed. You cannot reopen it when future medical bills arrive that settlements didn’t adequately cover.
According to the American Bar Association, settlement finality makes accurate future cost projections essential for adequate compensation.
If you settle for amounts covering only past medical expenses without accounting for anticipated future treatment, you’ll pay out-of-pocket for ongoing care your injuries require. This financial burden can devastate families already struggling with injury-related income loss.
Comprehensive future medical cost calculations protect you from settling for inadequate amounts that leave you unable to afford necessary future treatment.
2. Serious Injuries Require Lifetime Care and Monitoring
Many injuries don’t heal completely but instead require ongoing medical management throughout your lifetime. Permanent conditions needing future care include spinal cord injuries requiring attendant care and medical monitoring, traumatic brain injuries needing cognitive therapy and neurological care, amputations requiring prosthetic replacements and maintenance, and chronic pain conditions demanding ongoing pain management.
Future medical costs for these permanent injuries often exceed past treatment expenses by substantial margins. A young person with a spinal cord injury might incur tens of millions in lifetime medical costs even when initial hospitalization and rehabilitation only cost hundreds of thousands.
Settlements must account for decades of anticipated treatment or you’ll exhaust compensation long before your medical needs end.
3. Medical Costs Increase With Inflation
Future medical expenses must be adjusted for healthcare inflation, which typically exceeds general economic inflation rates. Treatment costing $50,000 today might cost $75,000 or more in ten years.
Life care planners project future costs using current medical pricing then apply anticipated inflation rates over your expected lifetime. These inflation adjustments increase future medical cost projections substantially.
Without proper inflation calculations, settlements based on today’s medical costs will be inadequate to cover the same treatments years from now when healthcare prices have risen significantly.
4. Complications and Secondary Conditions Are Predictable
Certain injuries predictably cause secondary medical issues requiring treatment in future years. For example:
- Spinal cord injuries lead to pressure sores, urinary tract infections, and respiratory complications
- Joint injuries cause arthritis requiring eventual replacement surgery
- Traumatic brain injuries increase dementia and seizure disorder risks
- Amputations require prosthetic adjustments and replacement over time
Professional medical testimony identifies these foreseeable complications and estimates their treatment costs. These anticipated secondary conditions substantially increase future medical expense projections beyond just ongoing treatment for primary injuries.
Settlements must account for predictable complications or you’ll face unexpected medical bills without resources to pay for necessary care.
5. Life Care Plans Provide Detailed Cost Projections
Life care planners are medical professionals who evaluate injured people and create comprehensive plans detailing all anticipated future medical needs throughout expected lifetimes.
These plans specify required surgeries and procedures with timing, ongoing therapy and rehabilitation needs, medications and medical supplies, assistive devices and equipment, home healthcare or attendant care services, and medical monitoring and physician visits.
Life care planners then research current costs for each identified need, project when services will be required, and apply inflation rates to calculate lifetime cost totals.
These detailed professional opinions provide specific dollar amounts for future medical expenses that insurance companies cannot easily dismiss. Life care plans transform abstract concepts of future needs into concrete cost projections backed by medical expertise.
Without professional life care planning, insurance companies refuse to pay substantial amounts for future medical care arguing that needs and costs are speculative.
Calculating Comprehensive Future Costs
We work with qualified life care planners, treating physicians, and medical professionals to project your complete future medical needs based on current condition and prognosis, anticipated treatment requirements, and professional medical opinions about long-term outlook.
These professionals provide testimony supporting future cost calculations that justify settlement demands far exceeding past medical expenses.
Insurance companies fight future medical cost claims aggressively because these damages often dwarf past treatment costs in serious injury cases. They argue injuries will improve more than expected, treatment needs are speculative, or cost projections are inflated.
Professional life care planning overcomes these defense arguments with detailed medical analysis and cost research supporting every projected future expense.
Protecting Your Future Medical Security
Settling without comprehensive future medical cost calculations means accepting inadequate compensation that won’t support your lifetime care needs. This mistake leaves you financially vulnerable when ongoing treatment depletes settlement proceeds years before your medical needs end.
Insurance companies prefer settling before you understand future medical implications because premature settlements save them millions in cases involving permanent injuries requiring lifetime care.
We insist on waiting until reaching maximum medical improvement and obtaining professional future cost projections before considering settlement. This patience protects you from accepting amounts that seem substantial initially but prove inadequate when future medical bills arrive.
Your settlement must provide financial security for lifetime medical needs, not just reimburse past treatment costs. Future medical expense calculations make the difference between adequate and inadequate compensation in serious injury cases.
Contact an experienced attorney who will work with qualified life care planners to project comprehensive future costs, obtain professional medical opinions supporting anticipated treatment needs, present detailed future cost evidence that insurance companies cannot easily dispute, and fight for settlements that provide financial security for lifetime medical care rather than just reimbursing past expenses and leaving you vulnerable when future treatment bills arrive that settlements should have covered but didn’t because proper future cost projections weren’t obtained before you settled permanently and irrevocably.
