In the eyes of insurance companies, medical bills are the best signs of the extent of your injuries. Insurance companies use and review the amount of those medical bills as the main factor in settlement talks. Accordingly, insurance claims adjusters and their supervisors place a great deal of importance on the quality of medical bill documentation.
For example, do your bills show that you had a hospital stay, underwent physical therapy or osteopathic or chiropractic treatment, had diagnostic tests, were given prescriptions or that you were advised to use over-the-counter medicines? A three-week hospital stay and five months of physical therapy is much better evidence of an injury than several thousand dollars worth of negative diagnostic tests, such as MRIs, X-rays and CAT scans.
If your accident-related medical bills are well-documented and relate to your actual injuries, that is clearly advantageous to your case. However, if your bills are for a series of tests that failed to demonstrate that you have any injuries, your case is considerably weaker. What’s worse, if your bills are exaggerated or relate to treatment for unrelated injuries, you will most assuredly find yourself in the minus column. Therefore, you may find it beneficial to obtain the services of qualified NJ injury lawyers to assist you with gathering your medical bills and evaluating their usefulness to your case.
Moreover, you should know that the quality of your medical information, including your medical reports, emergency room and physical therapy records, as well as any diagnostic interpretations, is the next most important thing used when evaluating a settlement. Note that reports that are written in narrative form from well-respected doctors who fully explain the nature of your injuries are preferable to illegible scrawled-out office notes that fail to say much of anything.
Detailed and typed office notes are good in most instances, as are physical therapy records and hospital records with detailed nurses’ notes. What it all boils down to is how well-documented your injuries are and the completeness of your records. If you need a team of qualified NJ injury lawyers, please call Zager Fuchs, P.C. for a free consultation.
