Washington Injury Law Blog

Part I

When you’re in a car accident or other injury causing accident medical treatment is often required to heal your injuries.  If another person is responsible for causing the accident you may have an injury case to assert against that person. Over the next three posts I will be discussing the Top 7 Errors to Avoid when Treating Car Accident Injuries, so you can make sure you don’t inadvertently damage your case.

Your medical treatment is the foundation that your injury case is built upon. You need to be aware that someone (an insurance company adjuster) down the road may be looking at what medical treatment you received and the records generated by your doctors and other medical treatment providers.

There are some things to avoid regarding your medical treatment to give your injury case the best chance at success. This three part series will tell you the 7 most common errors that insurance companies will use to attack your case in an attempt to minimize the value of your injury case.  The first two errors to avoid are:

1. Not seeking medical treated immediately.  When you have been injured and feel pain do not delay in  seeking medical care.  Not seeking medical treatment immediately often times leads to insurance companies arguing that you must not have been hurt very badly if you were able to wait days or weeks before first seeing a doctor.  Protect your health and your case by seeking medical treatment as soon as possible.

2. Not following the doctor’s instructions.  When your doctor tells you what to do to heal your injuries you need to follow through with what your doctor recommends.  Your doctor is the expert at diagnosing and fixing injuries, and your injury case will likely depend on his expert opinions.  The insurance company will minimize the severity of your injuries because you failed to do what was recommended by your doctor.

Seeking treatment immediately and following your doctor’s recommendations will go a long way to putting your injury case on a firm foundation and defeating some of the arguments insurance companies love to make against you. 

In Part II we’ll look at the importance of following though on the treatment recommended by your doctor and whether self referring to other types of treatment without first talking to your primary doctor is a good idea.