Should I Go See A Doctor Immediately Following My Injury

If you are able, you should see a doctor the day of the accident. If you feel fine the day of the accident but start to see an injury pop up just a couple days later, than go see a doctor immediately once the injury presents itself.

The chance to win a personal injury lawsuit drops exponentially with time the longer you wait to see a doctor following a negligent injury.

In fact, 71 percent of personal injury attorneys when asked said they are hesitant to take a case if the client did not see a doctor for more than a month after an injury.

It’s For Your Own Good
Following an accident, you might have internal injuries that can’t be visible or seen by the naked eye. For instance, about 115 people in the United States die each day in car accidents and a handful of these die from injuries that were not obvious. This means a handful of those deaths could be avoided if the victim sees a doctor right away.

A doctor can make sure you are fine and don’t have any serious risks following an accident. Just remember, a small pain that is just a nagging injury can turn into something deadly and only a doctor can give you the green light that you will be fine. Otherwise, you are not a trained medical professional.

It Will Hurt Your Personal Injury Lawsuit
A driver in Connecticut was rear-ended by a driver talking on her cell phone who was negligent. The driver who was struck filed a police report and went home assuming nothing was wrong. The next day, the driver, a father of three, suffered some neck pain.

He waited two months, dealing with the pain and missing work, to seek a doctor’s help. His next step was to hire a lawyer, who told him he had standing for a lawsuit. After a lengthy civil trial, the man was seeking $25,000 in medical bills and for suffering, but the case got thrown out for lack of significant evidence and his personal injury attorneyhad his hands tied because the man refused to see a doctor earlier.

This illustrates that you should see a doctor immediately after an accident because you might want to one day bring a personal injury lawsuit against the at-fault party for negligence, and you will need documentation of your injuries and what you did to help them. The documentation is the ammunition the lawyer needs to file a claim.

Even a survey of judges presiding over personal injury lawsuits said that more than 80 percent of the lawsuits they have given significant compensation to plaintiff’s had seen a doctor within one month and had detailed accounts of doctor treatments.

They Should Pay For Your Treatment
Another reason you need to see a doctor right after an accident is because you need this documentation so the at-fault party will pay for your treatment.

Doctor bills add up and become expensive. Also, depending on the lawsuit results you might have to see a doctor the at-fault party’s insurance will actually pay for.

In addition, seeing a doctor right after an accident is more documentation of that accident and your injuries for your legal counsel to use in your case. The doctor can verify that the accident caused the injury and who was at fault. The sooner you do this the stronger that documentation will be used for evidence in court.