Compensation for Future Medical Costs

The legal framework in Missouri aims to provide comprehensive support and compensation to individuals who suffer life-altering injuries from car accidents. This framework addresses both your immediate and long-term needs, ensuring that you receive the support you need during this challenging time.  Often, after a severe injury, individuals will require a lifetime of care.  For anyone, predicting the future with absolute certainty is an impossibility.  So, Missouri personal injury law does not require that of you.  Missouri Law requires only that medical experts acknowledge the need for future treatment within a “reasonable degree of medical certainty”.  Often, where individuals and their treating physicians have no reason to have studied that legal term of art, the word “certainty” is used to discredit claims for the cost of future medical.  But, in reality, the “reasonable degree of medical certainty” standard requires only that a medical professional believe the treatment being discussed will more-likely-than-not (ie., there is a greater than 50% chance) be needed to improve and/or maintain your condition assuming you live the remainder of your expected life span.

With these medical opinions, you can make future medical costs part of your claim.  Depending on your age, even things that insurance companies might want to minimize.  Think, for example, it is ‘more likely than not’ you will require 20 physical therapy sessions each year for the remainder of your life to maintain the strength and functionality of an injured body part, and you are only 35-years-old.  One PT session might only be $150.00, but 20 of them would be $3,000.00, and you are expected to live 43 more years.  That alone, even before an economist applies the effect of inflation, would account for $129,000.00.  So, where the insurance companies might characterize it as ‘just some PT’ and assign it little-to-no value, just that PT has material value worth caring about.

For Parts 1, 2 & 3 of our “Navigating the Personal Injury Claims Process in Missouri“:

Navigating the Personal Injury Claims Process in Missouri: Initial Steps

Types of Compensation in Broad Terms

More Information:

Common Question: What Types of Injury Cases Do We Handle?

Common Causes of Car Accidents in Missouri

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