Your Doctor’s Role in Your Personal Injury Case

If you’ve been seriously injured in an accident, you probably found yourself spending quite a bit of time at your doctor’s office. From treating your initial injuries to managing your follow-up care, your doctor is involved in every step of your recovery. According to attorney Peter Briskin of Fishbeyn & Briskin, P.C. in New York and New Jersey, though, your doctor’s role in your accident extends beyond facilitating your physical healing. He’s also an essential part of your personal injury case.

“The doctor who treats an accident victim is very important,” says Briskin. “As the attorney, when I look at any personal injury case, I’m looking at three areas: liability, damages, and ability to pay. ‘Liability’ refers to legal and financial responsibility for an accident.

‘Ability to pay’ refers to whether or not the person responsible for an accident is insured or has access to money to cover the victim’s accident-related costs. ‘Damages’ refers to the amount of harm that has actually been done to the victim as the result of an accident. Doctors play a key role in assessing damages.”

According to Briskin, damages are made up of two parts: compensatory damages and non-compensatory damages. He says that compensatory damages can include accident-related medical expenses (past, present and future), lost wages or any other out-of-pocket expenses incurred as the result of the accident. Briskin says, “Sometimes compensatory damages are huge, as they would be, for example, if you were bitten in the face by a Rottweiler.” In that type of case, he says, the related costs would include an ambulance, an emergency room visit and possibly multiple reconstructive surgeries. “That type of injury could cost upwards of $100,000 in medical treatment alone,” he says.

Non-compensatory damages are those damages that can’t be so easily quantified — the pain, discomfort, physical limitations, psychological difficulties and other problems brought on by an accident. “To use the Rottweiler example again,” says Briskin, “those types of attacks often require intensive therapy. Someone who’s undergone such a traumatic experience may need treatment from a psychiatrist or psychologist, may require ongoing pain management, and may even need to be on medication for the rest of his life.”

The doctor’s role in such a personal injury case is to help the attorney show the extent of a victim’s injuries — specifically, to illustrate non-compensatory damages. When proving the impact of an injury, the attorney can’t rely on the victim’s complaint alone. It’s too subjective, says Briskin. Instead, objective medical tests and the opinion of a physician are required to show whether an injury is severe enough to require long-term care and whether it’s likely to cause ongoing pain or disability.

After the injured person has received initial treatment and a suit has been filed, says Briskin, each doctor involved will prepare what are called “narrative reports.” These reports are essentially a chronology of events, beginning with the injured person’s initial visit, followed by his entire course of treatment, and then including any follow-up that may be necessary. The purpose of these reports is to sum up the entire course of the victim’s medical treatment with a specific doctor for specific injuries. These reports also include an opinion, rendered by the doctor, as to the severity of the injuries and whether the victim’s injuries are in fact related to the accident. These reports are used as evidence during litigation and are among the biggest factors in determining the monetary value of a case, that is, the amount the victim should be awarded for non-compensatory damages.

“Without the doctors’ reports,” says Briskin, “there’s no way to show the extent and impact of a victim’s injuries. The doctors provide the court with the evidence necessary to make a determination about a case’s value, and that value makes all the difference in the world to an accident victim who’s struggling with ongoing pain and medical care.”