Considering A TBI Claim – You MUST Think About These 3 Things
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Today, I would like to talk to you about three things to consider if you’re making a claim for a traumatic brain injury as a result of a car crash.
Consider the two types of damages
First of all, consider your expectations for damages. There are economic and non-economic damages. Economic damages, of course, are anything with a dollar sign, which includes medical bills, lost wages, and other things like that. Non-economic damages include what we hear about on TV, i.e., pain and suffering, but also impairment, which leads me into the next topic I would like to discuss.
Claims for brain injuries
If you have a brain injury and are making a claim for that, be prepared that it is going to take a long time. Even if you get an early diagnosis and early competent treatment, go through the rehabilitation process, do the exercises and follow your doctor’s orders, it takes time to go through all of that and to see how you progress.
Concussions are very slow to heal, but you need to go through all that because we need to know at the end of the treatment options if you still have a deficit. So, if at the end of everything that anybody can offer you, you’re still not back to where you were before the car crash that qualifies as impairment. That is one of the categories of damages that we just discussed.
Roadblocks
And then, there are roadblocks. Insurance companies love objective data. They like to see an X-ray. They like to see anything that is measured. But with a concussion, it’s very hard to show that because the CT or the MRI at the ER after the car crash was more than likely not normal. And all of your complaints are subjective.
It’s you telling your doctor you can’t concentrate, you telling your doctor you have trouble sleeping, you telling your doctor you’re unusually emotional. And there are any of those other symptoms that many people experience with a concussion.
More sensitive scans to be discussed later
There are a few brain scans out there that I will talk about in future videos, specifically for traumatic brain injuries and concussions that don’t show up on MRIs and CT scans. That’s because those just aren’t sensitive enough for the types of injuries that your brain suffered when it was concussed in a car crash.
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If you have a question about the above content or need help with your personal injury, please call us at 303-688-0944 to schedule a 30-minute consultation with a member of our Personal Injury Team.