Do I need to go to the doctor after an accident?
In this episode of Groth Gets it! from Groth Law Accident Injury Attorneys, Jon talks with attorney Mitch and our Director of Intake, Elsy about getting treatment after an accident. They speak about the importance of how seeking treatment immediately after a crash can not just help your own health but how it can impact settlements from insurance.
Transcript:
Jon Groth:
All right, here we are again, we’re talking about the importance of going to a doctor right away after a crash. I hate to say that because it doesn’t sound like it’s a great thing. “Hey, you got to go to the doctor, got to go the doctor,” because that’s what people on TV, if you want your cash you got to go to the doctor, those kind of things. But I think there is a legitimate reason why attorneys say that on TV and on the radio all the time, why there’s advertisements on buses that I see for doctors saying, “You got to see us right away.” I think it’s a matter of collecting evidence and now knowing on the backside, after trial, talking to a jury and handling cases where defense counsel is using the opposite of that against us, saying, “Well, if you didn’t go to the doctor right away, you must not have been injured.”
Jon Groth:
I think that’s an important thing to talk about now, honestly, because if you don’t go, you could hurt your case, and if you do go, you might feel guilty because, “Well, I’m not bleeding so why do I have to see a doctor? I’ll just wait for a week until I think I’m better, and then maybe it’ll be okay because with the power of positive thinking or hope, I’ll be okay.” I don’t know, it’s an interesting topic. Why should people go to the doctor soon after a crash, I guess, is my question? Elsy, what do you think about this?
Elsy Medina:
I think that it’s extremely important to go to a doctor immediately after a crash, and we have a lot of adrenaline and shock going throughout our bodies when we’re in such a horrific situation. So we may not feel it, but a few days later, you realize your shoulder’s not the same, your knee’s not the same, you’re limping now. So it’s really important to get into the doctor right away so they can address these issues and it limits further complications. A key example of that is the highest missed injury in personal injury is a TBI, a traumatic brain injury. So going to the doctor, letting them know right away, letting them examine you, can reduce your risks of serious complications in the future.
Jon Groth:
Well, and you made a good point last week, Elsy, you were at a conference out of town for a couple days with one of our other paralegals and you were talking about the importance of follow up with potential clients and clients within 24 hours of them signing with our firm. And if you get that contact within 24 hours, the average amount in a client’s pocket at the end of the case increases. And I think that directly corresponds with them going to the doctor and then documenting and being talked with about how to really document their injuries, create that evidence in a medical record. Is that right?
Elsy Medina:
Absolutely, yes. That’s one of the key points that we talked about is making sure that, one, you go to the doctor right away, and for your team to contact you within those 24 hours because if you haven’t gone to the doctor, maybe the last push that you need is your attorney telling you this is the doctor you need to go to. And most of the time, personal injury firms will work with a set list of providers and they can get you into one faster than your primary care doctor could. But yes, documenting it, all the medical documentation that your doctors will take down and your attorneys will only benefit your case in the future.
Jon Groth:
Yeah, I think that’s important, especially during the pandemic when doctors’ officers were closed and PT was shut down, and the big doctors, at least in the Wisconsin or Milwaukee area and throughout Wisconsin, they weren’t allowing people to come in. So you had to find an ulterior doctor to go get care just to show that there was an injury related to a crash. I don’t know, Mitch, what do you think about going to a doctor within 24 hours of a crash? What’s your experience, I guess, is a better way of asking? What’s your experience of those cases where people go to a doctor so soon after a crash?
Mitch Raasch:
Yeah, so I think I like to break it down just in terms of your health and then your case. So I think just for your health, I think it’s smart and it’s important to go right away to make sure that you get checked out, you’re okay, there’s no issues that you have that need to be addressed right away. So that’s number one. As far as your case is just an unfortunate reality that is out there, that the insurance company is going to use what they can against you to not pay you for your treatment for your case. And one of those things is gaps in treatment. Especially important is getting in right away. And I think just the benefit versus the risk to you is there’s just a lot more benefit for you out there because if you get in right away, hopefully your injury is resolved within about a week and then you’re okay. And then the insurance company will pay you for that, that day to service plus pain and suffering.
Mitch Raasch:
Whereas the alternative is you don’t go to the doctor right away and you’re still having symptoms a week later, and then it turns out to be a serious injury. And because of that gap in treatment, the insurance company denies your claim because you didn’t get into the doctor right away, and then you’re looking at a really bad situation. So I think, again, number one, because of your health, and then number two, just because the insurance company’s going to use it against you, and we see it time and time again, they’ll look through those medical records, if they don’t see that you get into the doctor right away, they’re going to hold it against you.
Jon Groth:
So the point of that is a gap in care is going to damage your case, period, right?
Mitch Raasch:
Correct, yeah.
Jon Groth:
Okay. It’s just kind of common sense, but people don’t realize how important it is. If you have a gap in care, number one, yeah, you’re really hurting yourself because you don’t know what might be there that you’re not treating, and then number two, you are certainly hurting your case because it makes much more difficult for us to put all those pieces together.
Mitch Raasch:
Especially if it’s not a high-impact case, and there’s not a lot of property damage. That makes it, at least from a strategic point of view, even more important to go, to the doctor to document that you were injured right away. Otherwise, especially with those low property damage cases, the insurance company will use that to hurt you. So definitely want to get in right away.
Jon Groth:
Yeah. So Elsy, what do you think about that? Is that something that you see because you’re on the front lines here, you’re talking to people much more than Mitch and I are. What’s your thought on gaps in care?
Elsy Medina:
I think that for the most part, when a potential new client calls us, and their accident was a few weeks ago, and they haven’t gone to the doctor, it’s not necessarily a red flag for us, but it makes us question if there is a viable claim there because just like Mitch said, the insurance company will use anything to their advantage. So it’s just very, very important to get into that doctor right away. And I know that that can be stressful, especially like you were saying, Jon, where it can take forever to get into your primary care doctor. And that’s why hopefully the firm that you’re with ends up helping you set up care, or nowadays a lot of doctors’ offices are offering telehealth visits where at least you can avoid that gap in treatment and you can say, “Well, you know what? I was hurting so much that I had to reach out to a doctor. And although it wasn’t in person, I was still able to talk to my doctor about the pain that I was feeling and then we set up whatever treatment it may be.”
Elsy Medina:
So there are a lot of alternatives to getting treatment, and it’s just so important to do that within the first 24 hours, or just as soon as possible.
Jon Groth:
All right. I think we’ve beaten that dead horse, but I think it’s certainly suitable for a current, I guess, caseload here, where we have cases where people are calling us, well, gosh, there was one, who did I talk to? Now, my days are all melting together here, but there was somebody I talked to either yesterday or else this morning who had a crash on Friday, and was talking about just feeling out of it and they hadn’t gone to the doctor because the crash occurred out of town. They had to get somebody’s uncle to come pick them up to drive them back to the state, and it was just a lot going on. And they had a little kid that they had care for, so they’re thinking of their family before themselves, which is very noble, very good. But I told them it’s time to think about yourself to make sure that you go in to understand what’s happening with your body and what damage was caused by this crash.
Jon Groth:
And this crash, it was unbelievable where there was somebody who was driving, well, no, there were two people that I talked to separately yesterday and today. One person was in the back of a semi that the driver of the semi fell asleep and it drove off the road like, “Holy cow, I’m lucky that you’re still talking to me.”
Mitch Raasch:
Yeah.
Jon Groth:
And then the other person, they were driving cross-country and this person was a passenger in the car asleep, and yeah, passenger was asleep, the driver fell asleep, and they crashed and they were heading down south, southwest and they’re in the middle of the nation. This happens, and they have to gather everything and then get somebody’s relative to come pick them up. So you have all that going on where you’re out of the state, you have all kinds of problems, and you don’t know what you’re going to do, how you’re going to get your personal belongings back, whatever else, the plans you had you have to cancel, all that and then you have to now schedule, I don’t know, three, four hours to go to urgent care or go to the emergency room. I mean, that’s tough. And that’s where I think talking to Elsy, talking to Mitch, talking to our staff here at Groth Law Firm, we can have some assistance to hopefully make it a little bit less stressful because we can say, “Okay, this is important, this is what you should do, A, B, C, 1, 2, 3, and let’s go forward.”
Jon Groth:
And then let us handle all the other stress of opening claims, dealing with health insurance, dealing with auto insurance and things like that. I think that’s right. Elsy, [inaudible 00:10:10] think about that?
Elsy Medina:
I think you’re correct, I don’t disagree with anything you just said.
Jon Groth:
Good. Wow, that’s a first, boy. I’m going to copy this recording and use this for the rest of my life. Mitch, what do you think?
Mitch Raasch:
I agree.
Jon Groth:
Oh, two for two. All right, fantastic. All right, thank you. This is a shorter one, I wanted to keep this below 14 minutes, and we have succeeded in that task. So Elsy, thanks for joining us via phone. This is interesting, I haven’t done a podcast with somebody on the phone before, usually it’s just in person. I think it worked out pretty well. There were some kind of squeaks and stuff, but I think we could hear her, right?
Mitch Raasch:
Sounds good to me.
Jon Groth:
Yeah, cool. All right, fantastic. Thank you very much, we’ll talk to you shortly.
Elsy Medina:
Sounds good, have a good day, everyone.
Jon Groth:
All right, thanks, Elsy. See you. Thanks, bye.
Elsy Medina:
Bye.