Do Not Put This Off or You WILL Miss Out!

You NEED to protect your future.

If you suffer with constant or intermittent pain from your car accident… If your neck hurts or you have back pain and headaches… If you worry about playing with your children or doing the things you love to do because you’re always in pain… If you worry about your future because you’re getting worse, or might get worse, and you NEED to have your medical bills paid…, you need to read this and future blogs!

At this point the statistics are not on your side if you have been involved in an auto accident and suffered.

9 Mistakes People Make When Dealing with Doctors after an Injury!

1. Failing to seek immediate medical attention after a traumatic injury or event.
2. Failing to fully communicate your health history to your doctor.
3. Missing or showing up late for treatment or appointments.
4. Failing to get your pain accurately documented in medical records.
5. Failing to inform your doctor if or how your injury is affecting your ability to work.
6. Failing to inform your doctor of how your injury is affection your activities of daily living.
7. Failing to take prescribed diagnostic procedures.
8. Discontinuing treatment too soon.
9. Failing to keep up with your own medical records.

TRICKY INSURANCE COMPANIES LAUGH ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK!

Here are some of the most common tactics used by insurance companies and adjusters:

1. A quick cash settlement before you have had a chance to see a doctor. What they don’t tell you is that you may have to turn around and give that check to your health insurance company. They don’t care about you. The adjuster wants to close the file and get you to release all of your claims.

2. Deliberate delay. They may stall or avoid calling you back. They know that you may be missing work or having to pay copays and deductibles, so they try to put you in a financial squeeze, all in hopes that you will give up. Oh, by the way, they expect you to continue to pay your premiums while they take their time. If you are in the process of settlement negotiations, they may try to avoid you and delay until statutes of limitations or time restraints are over. Texas law gives you two years after an accident to either settle your claim or file a lawsuit.

Texas law prohibits insurance companies from delaying payment of a claim to pressure you to sign a release. If you think an insurance company is delaying payment to pressure you, file a complaint with the Texas Department of Insurance.

• Requesting unnecessary information or using scary words like “We are investigating the claim,” to determine “Who was at fault?” Meanwhile they are earning interest on the money they are not paying or money that is set aside to pay you but will be delayed as much as possible.

• Disputing medical necessity of treatment. Now, I have never met an adjuster with any medical or health care training, but they seem to know just what treatment is right for you! In most cases they usually “know” that you were over treated because their computer or the adjuster at the desk beside them says you should be better by now.

• Misrepresentation of insurance benefits. They tell you that there is only $60,000 in coverage, but then you find out—usually too late—that magically there was an umbrella policy with $100,000 in coverage! Don’t you think they knew this information the first time they looked it up on their computer? Well of course they did. As I am writing this book, I have a patient who was involved in an accident and had spent fourteen days out of work. She had severe neck pain and headaches but had not had any treatments because she did not know if she had any coverage to pay for bills and missed time at work. She said she had attempted to call the insurance company but was not able to talk to anyone. The insurance company finally—out of their convenience—called her back ten days after the accident. The insurance adjuster told her they would only cover up to $1,000 of medical bills. She had already been to the ER in an ambulance—do you think that comes close to paying for those services? She told us her story and said she was hurting so badly that she needed treatment. We quickly went to work verifying her coverage, as this situation sounded odd. After all the smoke cleared, we were able to verify that she did have $5,000 coverage in personal injury protection benefits, $30,000 in liability benefits, and $50,000 in uninsured and underinsured benefits. WOW! Read that again: she went from $1,000 of coverage to $85,000. She was furious. I would like to say I was shocked, but nothing surprises me anymore. Insurance companies will go to incredible lengths to misrepresent benefits. Their excuse was that the injured party was not asking the right questions.

• Wrongly telling their own insured’s that they have to go through the careless driver’s insurance companies.

• These insurance companies want you to believe that the amount of damage to your car is related to the damage you feel. That is to say, if your car has minor damage, then you can’t be hurt. This is just not true. I have had many patients over the years who have pain following a minor auto collision. I have had many patients with major collisions with minimal injuries. There have been many studies published by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) that show that there is little relation between vehicle damage and occupant injury.

Guess why insurance companies rush to settle your case as fast as they can? Well, they are hoping that you may not yet feel all of the symptoms and will be quick to say yes to a settlement before you are appropriately examined by an expert in auto collision injuries. You may even still be under the effects of the pain medications.

Don’t miss out on our next blog covering more on Auto Accident injuries.

If you can answer YES to any of these questions, we may be the injury clinic for you.

1. Do you have neck or back pain?
2. Do you have unrelenting muscle soreness?
3. Do you have painful headaches or dizziness?
4. Do you have numbness, tingling, or sharp pains in legs or arms?
5. Is there visible property damage to your vehicle?
6. Did the accident happen within the last year?

If you can answer yes to any of these questions, give us a call at 325-695-9355.

Jake Morgan DC

THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE:

I am not an attorney. I know the arguments and types of injuries that are common in medico-legal situations, and I can offer you suggestions and identify traps, but please do not construe anything I’ve mentioned as legal advice. Every situation is unique and different.