Does Physical Therapy Affect Your Settlement After a Car Accident?

After you or someone you love experiences a car accident, your first concern should be your health and getting better. However, financial concerns can prove burdensome as well. After an accident it’s natural to wonder, “Does physical therapy affect your settlement after a car accident?”

The answer is yes, it can, and usually, in a positive manner. Just as physical therapy plays an important role in physical strength after an accident, it can also play an important role in the strength of your legal case as well.

At ZK Physical Therapy & Chiropractic, we aim to treat the whole patient, not just the injury. This includes proper documentation of your injuries, transparent billing, and consistent treatment. If you’re trying to return to a normal life after an injury, we can help in more ways than one.

Why Physical Therapy Matters in a Car Accident Settlement

If you’re considering physical therapy after an accident, it’s likely a good idea. Physical therapy helps you improve strength, balance, flexibility, and get your body back to good working order after any type of trauma, including that from auto accidents. It also helps prevent problems from becoming chronic, reduces pain, and helps you get back to work when needed.

But physical therapy also provides an independent record of your health challenges, the way you’ve gone about healing, and the cost of these activities.

When you file an injury claim after an accident, especially if you’re working with an attorney, your settlement is usually partially based on your medical expenses. These are called “economic damages” in personal injury lawsuits, and physical therapy often falls under this category.

In any personal injury case or insurance settlement, physical therapy records may play an important role in the documentation of your recovery and injuries.

Documentation After an Accident

Outside of the physical effects, perhaps the most meaningful way physical therapy can help after an accident is by providing independent documentation. The precise documentation provided by our therapists and organization helps offer a total picture of injuries and recovery in a measurable way.

Your physical therapist can help document your pain intensity and frequency, limitations to range of motion, flexibility, balance, strength, and confidence. This documentation may also help show when and why the injury happened and how it has affected your life.

Finally, it also helps to show whether your injuries are temporary, long-term, or chronic. 

Why Consistent Treatment Is So Important

After an accident, consistency is of the utmost importance when treating traumatic injuries with physical therapy. With therapy sessions at regular intervals, you can make progress toward health steadily and surely.

This consistency also provides a reliable timetable for your injuries and treatment. It helps establish that your injuries were, in fact, caused by the accident, not present beforehand, and are likely to continue afterward.

In some cases, insurance companies or opposing counsel may try to argue that your injuries were not caused by the accident, therefore they shouldn’t have to pay. A robust timeline of physical therapy documentation may help prove the accident did, in fact, cause them.

At the same time, physical therapy helps document the severity of the injuries. This may help support credibility. In the same manner, pain levels, debilitation, and other factors that may impact your case may be verified as well.

This consistent documentation helps ensure your case isn’t simply your word against theirs. 

Gaps in Treatment

Gaps in physical therapy treatment may be detrimental to your case. Coming to physical therapy regularly helps prove not only are you committed to treatment, but that your injuries are in fact as serious as you claim. Stopping therapy too early or missing a lot of sessions may signal to insurance companies that your injuries weren’t as serious, or you recovered faster than stated.

In all cases, it’s best to follow your prescribed course of treatment exactly. 

How ZK Physical Therapy & Chiropractic Supports Car Accident Victims

After any accident, the importance of early treatment is paramount. Early interventions are key not only to good physical outcomes but good legal and monetary outcomes as well.

If you’ve been in a car accident, call us today. We can help get you back on your feet and provide the proper documentation to ensure your injuries are treated appropriately in our office and in the courtroom. See our frequently asked questions or give us a call today.