Car accidents make for difficult experiences, especially when injuries occur. Although collecting information for later use in a potential personal injury claim can be beneficial, it should not take precedence over your health. Seeking medical treatment in a timely fashion after a car wreck is critical to ensuring that you receive the medical treatment you need. Timely medical attention can also be an important factor in a personal injury case, should you choose to file one.
At the Law Offices of Vic Feazell, P.C., our personal injury lawyers focus on providing comprehensive support and counsel to car wreck victims, including assistance with helping them navigate how to best address their medical needs. While we are available to help injured victims from the very moment they reach out to us, we know that some may be unsure about what steps they need to take after an accident.
Because your health should be a top concern after being involved in a car accident, our team wants to remind everyone that a medical evaluation is critical. Whether you are on the fence in regard to calling a personal injury lawyer or not, you should still seek medical treatment. When you do, here are a few important things you can discuss with your doctor.
- Your Accident – When meeting with a doctor, or following up after receiving emergency medical care following a wreck, you should explain all details you can remember about a crash. By discussing your accident, you provide your doctor with information about the type of forces that may have affected your body, as well as direction to help them look for certain types of injuries. Being involved in a rear-end accident, for example, may mean that you experienced stress on your neck that should be evaluated. Explaining that you hit your head, with or without losing consciousness, in an accident can also ensure that a doctor addresses the possibility of a brain injury, even if you might feel fine. By discussing the type of accident you were in, your doctor may be able to address injuries you did not know about, or injuries you did not think were as serious as they might actually be.
- Your Symptoms – In addition to explaining the nature of your crash and what happened, you will also want to discuss any symptoms you are experiencing. Symptoms can be indicators of larger issues or injuries, even for conditions you didn’t think were serious. Discussing your symptoms openly can help doctors gauge the type of injury and its severity, make specialist referrals, and aid them in using various tools to make a diagnosis. Talking about your symptoms can also help doctors evaluate injuries that may not be explicitly connected to the type of crash or harm you suffered. For example, victims harmed in rear-end accidents may suffer a concussion as the result of acceleration and deceleration of the brain within the skull, even if the victim never hit their head.
- Your Treatment – When a doctor has the information they need and makes a diagnosis about your injuries, you can discuss the treatment options you may have available. For some injuries, especially more severe injuries, treatment may be limited in that medical intervention becomes a necessity. In others, minimally invasive and conservative approaches may be options, and you can gauge whether they are effective with your doctor as treatment progresses.
- Your Prognosis – A prognosis is a medical professional’s opinion about your injury, the way an injury will impact your life, and your recovery. By asking about your prognosis, you can gain a better understanding of the symptoms you may face in the short- and long-term, what things you should avoid or do as you recover, and how long it may take to recover, if a full recovery can be made.
- Your Ability to Work – All too often, car accident victims return to work too soon. Speak with your doctor about your ability to work, including the types of duties you perform for your job. Based on their assessments, a doctor may recommend that you take time off work and provide you with a note for your employer. They may also make recommendations about avoiding certain types of job duties that could aggravate or worsen your injuries.
Being evaluated by a doctor is the only way to understand the true impact of an accident and the injuries you may have suffered. Remember, some injuries may not present themselves until time passes after a crash, or may present symptoms that do not indicate how severe an injury really is. By waiting or not seeking medical treatment, you risk not receiving the treatment you need and experiencing problems in the future.
Waiting to seek medical treatment also opens the door to insurance companies arguing that because you waited to see a doctor, you were not really hurt in a crash. This is a common tactic they employ when attempting to pay victims as little as possible. As such, it is important to any personal injury claim you may file that you have documentation of your injuries.
Learn more about medical treatment and auto accidents by speaking with a Waco personal injury attorney from the Law Offices of Vic Feazell, P.C. We provide FREE consultations. Contact us today.