Whether you’re representing the defendant or plaintiff, personal injury attorneys need access to reliable medical cost assessments in order to fight for their clients’ best interests. You might think that you can create such a report on your own, but the truth is that failing to get assistance from an experienced Life Care Planner can jeopardize the integrity of your case. You need a medical cost consultant who can carry out thorough research and take all relevant factors into account.
One key factor that will affect the total reflected by a medical cost assessment is the age of the injured party. Keep reading to learn more about how age is accounted for in Life Care Plans and Medical Cost Projection reports from our Certified Life Care Planners.
What Is a Life Care Plan or Medical Cost Projection?
Before you can understand how age affects medical cost assessments, it’s important to learn exactly what such reports include and how they can be used.
Medical cost assessments are a form of documentation showing the research and calculations used to determine future medical care costs for a given injury. Medical Cost Projections and Life Care Plans differ primarily due to their length: an MCP report is a shortened version of a Life Care Plan. Both types of reports include things like a detailed medical description of the injury and an assessment of future care costs. Life Care Plans include additional research and interviews with medical professionals.
How Does Age Affect Future Medical Care Costs?
The age of the injured party plays a big role in the projected future cost of medical care for a personal injury case. The primary way age affects care costs is because it affects life expectancy, and we use life expectancy as a primary part of our calculations.
Age affects compensation in the ways that you would expect: typically, the older the client, the lower the life expectancy, and thus the lower the medical costs for future care. We rely on life expectancy figures from the Centers for Disease Control to carry out our assessments.
Do I Need a Life Care Plan or MCP Report for My Elderly Client?
With everything we’ve explained so far in mind, you might now be asking yourself whether or not it’s worthwhile to get a medical cost assessment for an elderly client. First, it’s important to remember that you have options when it comes to medical cost assessments: while a Life Care Plan may not be right for your case, a shorter Medical Cost Projection might be.
Next, it’s worth keeping in mind that medical costs can still be considerable even for elderly clients. Personal injuries can lead to incredibly high medical costs almost immediately, and if those injuries were caused by someone else, the injured party deserves the right to seek full compensation for their medical damages. A medical cost assessment may be essential to getting full compensation.
What Factors Affect Medical Cost Assessments?
Age is one of the biggest factors that can affect future care costs, but it’s far from the only one. Some of the other factors that can play a role in future medical expense assessments include:
- Injury severity
- Number of injuries
- Likelihood of complications
- Life expectancy
These are just a few of the many issues that need to be taken into consideration when creating a Medical Cost Projection or Life Care Plan. To learn more about what could play a role in the cost of medical care for your personal injury case, get in touch with a Certified Life Care Planner.
How Are Life Care Plans and Medical Cost Projections Created?
Finally, to get an in-depth picture of how we use age in our calculations, you can learn about the process of creating a Medical Cost Projection or Life Care Plan below:
- Medical Records Review – The first step to creating an accurate future care cost assessment is getting a clear understanding of the injury and the injured party’s treatment and current condition.
- Medical Research – Once we know all the background information about the injury, we can begin our research into the types and costs of medical care needed for such an injury.
- Cost Calculation – We will utilize our extensive research to create an accurate assessment of future care costs.
- Thorough Documentation – Throughout the assessment and calculation process, we maintain careful documentation to ensure accuracy and effectiveness.
- Report Creation – Finally, we create an airtight report including all necessary evidence to ensure our assessments can stand up to any scrutiny.
Having the right process is essential to creating an accurate medical cost assessment, but it’s not the only thing you’ll need. You should turn to a medical cost consultant for help calculating future medical expenses for your personal injury client.
Get an Accurate Future Care Assessment from DM Medical Cost Consulting
As you can see, creating a medical cost report is not a simple process, and there are many factors that need to be taken into account when creating an assessment of future care costs. The best way to ensure that your assessment of future medical expenses is accurate and exhaustive is by relying on a Certified Life Care Planner.
Here at DM Medical Cost Consulting, our Certified Life Care Planners have extensive experience creating accurate medical cost assessments, and you can rely on us to create a solid report for your case. You can avoid excessive settlements or undervalued claims with a Life Care Plan or Medical Cost Projection by your side.