If you’ve suffered injuries because of a car accident, it’s only natural to want to seek out various methods of recovery and healing. While it is often up to the individual to find the treatments that work best for them, unfortunately, not all those methods are equal when examined from the lens of professionals with knowledge of the law.
Believe it or not, the type of medical treatment you choose following an accident can hold some sway over how an insurance company will value your claim. This is why attorneys, like the personal injury attorneys in Costa Mesa, Easton and Easton, may advise against going with a chiropractor post-accident.
That might seem far-fetched at first glance, but the following explanation should break down why this is sometimes the case, and why, when it comes to injury claims, the “right” option may not be what you initially think it is.
The Value Of Medical Care
According to AllLaw, there are multiple variables that factor into the perceived value of an injury claim, and the manner in which you have your injuries treated will play a significant role in the eyes of insurance adjusters. Right off the bat, for instance, there’s a difference between how they might view diagnosis of a problem and the actual treatment.
If the diagnosis for your injuries/ailments is quick, for example, many adjusters will include it into the total cost of your treatments that follow. In some cases, though, diagnosis may take longer, with doctors running multiple tests to determine what’s wrong and how they should fix it.
In the latter example, let’s say the treatment ends up being little, comparative to the diagnosis. This may cause adjusters to put less weight on the costs of diagnosis, and it’s not the only way in which they view medical procedures differently.
There’s often a distinction made by adjusters between standard procedures done by hospitals and physicians versus those performed by physical therapists, chiropractors, and the like.
In the case of the former, regardless of the eventual cost, the expenses are viewed as legitimate and adjusters will treat them as such. The latter grouping, however, is oftentimes viewed as “alternative medicine,” and as such, is given lower weight in an adjuster’s formula for determining settlement payouts.
It’s for this reason that chiropractic treatments, while they may be effective in treating your injuries, will not always net you the highest settlement amount from an injury claim — something to keep in mind should you ever find yourself going through the process.