Accident Injury Doctor - Auto Accident Attorneys

If you have been hurt in a preventable accident and have questions about your medical condition, it is important to set aside time to see an accident injury doctor. This can include going to an accident injury care facility, such as your primary care doctor, an emergency room, or urgent care. 

You may even search online for "accident injury doctors near me" in an effort to find the best next steps on your road to recovery. You can also consider accident injury chiropractors and physical therapists as part of your treatment plan, but it is important to visit first with an accident injury doctor who can give you an initial, thorough diagnosis. 

Accident injury care is one of the most important components of identifying how you've been affected by the incident and in charting a course for your treatment. You may require treatment for one or more medical conditions after a serious injury caused by someone else, and your accident injury doctor can help you to get the appropriate care and help you figure out what to do next.

If you’re suffering from a car accident, your health insurance policy might not provide accident injury coverage. Instead, you might be able to go to your doctor, but your health insurance company might wish to speak with parties from your car insurance company so that all the bills and treatments for your accident-related injury are kept together. If you are able to recover compensation to pay for your injuries and healthcare, you might have to pay back your health insurance company or use the funds received from a legal settlement or verdict to cover all the medical bills received. Make sure you hire the right people to help you with the legal aspects of your injuries after you meet with your accident injury doctor. 

What to Do First

After you've been seriously hurt in an accident, you need to go to the emergency room, your primary care doctor, or urgent care. This is because you may have no symptoms at the time of the accident, but these can develop quickly or can be unnoticed due to the experience of shock. Visiting an accident injury doctor immediately after a car accident, slip and fall, or similar incident can help you clarify whether or not you have more severe medical conditions at play.

How Can an Accident Injury Doctor Help? 

Your doctor can run various tests associated with diagnosing you, but some symptoms may not be readily apparent so soon after the accident. For example, many people experience whiplash, a medical problem from being thrown forward and backward during a vehicle accident, but it does not always show up in the immediate hours after the crash itself. Whiplash can instead manifest as soreness throughout the neck, shoulders, and upper back in the days following the accident. If you notice that your medical condition has changed, go back to your accident injury doctor and share any new symptoms or problems you're experiencing. 

No one expects to find themselves in a serious and devastating accident, but many state laws have protections for you as a victim. You may be eligible to pursue a personal injury claim to recover compensation after visiting with your accident injury doctor. In fact, your decision to see an accident injury doctor could be extremely important for showing how your life was changed by the accident. It is not uncommon for people who have been through a vehicle accident, for example, to miss one or more days of work, which leads to lost wages and questions about whether or not you'll be able to return to your normal position.

It is crucial to discuss your entire treatment plan with your accident injury doctor or your accident injury chiropractor. Being consistent with your treatment plan greatly increases your chances of making the best possible recovery. Bear in mind that not all people who are seriously injured in an accident will make a full recovery. Instead, many will reach a point known as “maximum medical improvement.” This simply means that your doctor has determined that you have physically improved as much as you are going to ever hope to improve. This does not necessarily mean that you have returned to your normal, pre-accident state.

For example, maybe you have regained most of your function and feeling but continue to experience chronic pain. You will also want to share these symptoms with your accident injury doctor and note this with your personal injury lawyer. Your personal injury lawyer can include this information in calculating a possible settlement offer in your lawsuit.

What Kind of Treatment Should I Get After a Car Accident?

A medical professional must check your injuries so that you can get the treatment you need. The severity of your injuries and how your accident happened may influence the kind of doctor you see. You might need to see a primary care physician, an urgent care doctor, a chiropractor, an emergency room doctor, or a medical specialist such as a neurologist or a surgeon. If your injuries are severe or even life-threatening, you need to see an emergency room doctor as soon as possible by contacting 911 and taking a ride in the ambulance. The ER is also the best treatment plan if your injuries occur late at night or in the very early hours of the morning and your physician's office is not yet open. Your doctor may also refer you to a specialist for additional testing or treatment because you have specific injuries or require surgeries.

If you visit with any physicians associated with your medical care under the umbrella of an accident injury doctor, follow all instructions from those doctors. If they request that you schedule an additional appointment with a specialist or come back on a regular basis, continue to make and keep those appointments. Keep notes of any and all appointments that you attend with your physicians and anyone you have been referred to. It can be difficult to remember all of the details of your treatment plan and your medical condition. So many victims in car accidents choose to keep a journal as well. This journal can be very important for creating a timeline and in putting together the pieces of your lawsuit later on.

Remember that you will also need to keep track of making your own insurance claim and keep copies of any paperwork for insurance purposes. You may receive multiple medical bills shortly after you begin to get treatment from your accident injury doctor. All of this may become part of your personal injury claim, which is why it is so important to keep it organized.

When Should I Hire a Lawyer?

If you have extensive medical bills or conditions following your accident, you might need to share this information with a personal injury lawyer. Only a personal injury lawyer can review the specifics of your case and provide you with the right insight about moving forward. Plenty of people who have been hurt in accidents have many questions about the best way to proceed, and some need to speak with a lawyer right away. The sooner you speak to an attorney, the easier it will be for you to move forward. 

Each state has a set of rules called the statute of limitations, which means that victims have a limited period of time after an accident to file a lawsuit. If you exceed this time, you will not be able to get your claim filed or approved. 

What if I Don't Agree With My Accident Injury Doctor?

Especially if you are dealing with a worker's compensation claim, there may be a situation in which you do not agree with your doctor about your treatment plan. You may not even agree with your physician about the original diagnosis. You need to be proactive in your management of any cases by communicating with your physician and seeking out second opinions if necessary. In this way, you become your own patient advocate and decrease the possibility of having someone else make all the decisions for you. If you believe that your doctor is not listening to you or that you have been improperly diagnosed, consider exercising a request for a second opinion. Overall, this is your medical care and you deserve to have all the right information when seeking treatment for your injuries. 

You can also discuss these concerns with a personal injury lawyer if you believe that you need to change accident injury doctors. Accident injury doctors are an important piece of the puzzle when getting you the medical attention you need, but you should be able to feel confident in their treatment plan, too. 

If you have more questions about the way in which your injury claim was handled, feel free to reach out to a specialist at Morgan & Morgan. Our legal team is the largest in the nation and is equipped with years of experience in handling these kinds of situations. Contact us today for a free, no-obligation case evaluation.