8 THINGS YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST DO
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1. Watch out for important time limits. Generally in California, you have only one year from the date of accident within which to either settle your personal injury claim or preserve it by filing a formal lawsuit on it. If you fail to do either, your claim will simply expire and become forever barred!
Somewhat different, and more complicated, time limits, and procedures, apply if your claim is against some government entity such as a city, the county, the state or the federal government or if a child is injured.
You need to be very, very, careful about those time limits. They vary from state to state, are strictly enforced and can be very harsh. And, in California, once a formal lawsuit is filed, it can trigger a whole series of other important deadlines that can result in your being fined, or your case being dismissed, if you fail to meet them.
2. You must get medical treatment as soon as possible. Go to the hospital, the doctor, and whatever health care providers are reasonably necessary to get well -- not next week, or next month, or next year, when it is convenient, but as soon after the accident as humanly possible, and, preferably, before you see an attorney.
If you are legitimately injured, people expect you to go to the hospital, or the doctor, as soon as possible, and get the care you need.
If you don't, to them it means that you must not be hurt. They don't understand, or accept, excuses about how you couldn't afford to go to the doctor, or you kept hoping that you were going to get better, or you wanted to talk to your lawyer first and have him send you to the "right doctor". To them those are the words of a fake and a fraud!
If you are really hurt, they expect you to go immediately to the nearest hospital, or doctor, money or no money, even if you have to crawl!
3. Select the best, most reputable, doctors available. While in an emergency, you may not always have a choice of what hospital you go to, or what doctor you see, at the first opportunity always choose the best, most reputable, doctors you can find -- preferably a medical specialist like an orthopedic surgeon, neurosurgeon or neurologist -- who specializes in your particular kind of problem. Those who will some day judge you, will expect you to do so. They will reward you for doing so and will be quick to punish you if you don't.
4. Generally stay away from general practitioners and "family doctors". They may have a great bedside manner and be a whiz at nursing you through the flu or a common cold, but they generally know nothing about closed head trauma or serious orthopedic or neurological injuries. For certain, they know nothing about the law, insurance or handling accident cases -- nor do they want to know!
Their basic orientation is to minimally treat symptoms and complaints (not the underlying problem) and to try and reassure you that you are going to be ok and that "time heals all wounds". To the extent that they bother to keep any records, those records will reflect that attitude and play directly into the hands of the large truck line, and its big insurance company, whose basic strategy is to always minimize your injury!
5. Also stay away from "alternative health care" and "New Age Medicine". It is not the time to become a pioneer, martyr, or pawn in such philosophical causes or get caught-up in the perennial debate between conventional medicine and alternative medicine.
That is not to say that chiropractic, osteopathy, acupuncture, herbal medicine and various kinds of massage are not popular, or beneficial, but why jeopardize your case, your future, by placing yourself in the middle of a philosophical debate between competing disciplines that you cannot win and that your opponents can exploit to their benefit!
People understand and accept medical doctors and conventional medicine -- whatever their short-comings may be. Stick with what judges, juries and arbitrators will understand and accept.
6. Avoid insurance doctors, and those that are hostile to injured people and their lawyers, like the plague. They will sink you without batting an eye!
Here things get tricky because doctors don't wear signs around their necks proclaiming their prejudices, biases and sources of income. That is unfortunate for the rest of us because a great many medical specialists -- particularly orthopedic and neurological specialists -- make a great deal of money from insurance companies by sitting around writing reports all day that say that there is little, or nothing, wrong with injured people!
Because of their unlimited resources, insurance companies can afford the best and often hire the brightest, the most reputable and prominent medical specialists around. Therefore, you must be very careful in selecting a medical specialist.
Believe me, some guy who is hauling down a couple of hundred thousand dollars a year by cranking out medical reports that say that there is little, or nothing, wrong with the hundreds of injured people sent to him by a big insurance company is not about to jeopardize that bonanza by saying that you really got hurt! It ain't going to happen!
Also be alert to the fact that a lot of doctors simply hate our legal system, and all lawyers, and want nothing to do with either!
There are all kinds of reasons for that animosity: big egos, different thought processes (doctors and lawyers are trained to think very differently), differences in language, high medical malpractice rates, intrusion upon their time, what they may perceive to be a hostile invasion of their world, past bad experiences, the fear of being made a fool of by some slick-talking lawyer, and, in these days and times, possibly a personal political agenda focused on tort reform, abolishing the jury system and, if possible, lawyers as well!
Those kinds of doctors are never going to believe that you have sustained any legitimate injury and they certainly are never going to stand up, or go to bat, for you.
Since you want, and need, the best doctors, but they don't come with signs around their necks, selecting the best doctor for you, medically and legally, can be a big problem. You will need the counseling and guidance of an experienced, and knowledgeable, personal injury lawyer who you can trust.
7. Insist on an organized, coordinated, plan of medical treatment. That seems pretty elementary but one of the drawbacks to the development of modern medical specialties is that frequently, no matter how good he is, the specialist is so near-sighted that he can't see the forest for the trees. In the absence of a coordinated treatment plan, your doctors can, sometimes, actually end-up working against each other and undermining one another's treatment.
Although it is your doctors who should be providing that medical management, and cooperation, it doesn't always happen. When they fail to do it, the responsibility may fall, by default, to your lawyer. If so, you will need a highly experienced personal injury lawyer who can provide that coordination or, at least, have the good sense, and contacts, necessary to get you to an "enlightened" medical doctor who can!
8. Find the best, most experienced, personal injury lawyer you can -- one who is experienced in handling truck accidents. But, as we will see, experience, and technical competence, is merely part of the equation. Ultimately, a "good lawyer", the "best lawyer", is one who you can trust and who cares about you.