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If you’re hurt at work, injured in a traffic or trucking accident, or hurt in another type of accident, a key factor in the amount of your settlement is whether your injury is permanent and if so, the medical severity of the permanency.
The answers to these settlement-driving questions are between you and your doctor. It’s your job to thoroughly and honestly tell the doctor your symptoms and the impact they have on your life. It’s the doctor’s job to take your reports, plus the medical evidence, and produce a measure of your injury’s permanency. Let’s take a closer look how that works.
Your doctor can’t reach the conclusion that your injury’s permanent until you’ve reached maximum medical improvement (MMI).
MMI means your condition is as good as it’ll get from a medical standpoint. In other words, further treatment won’t make it better. But that doesn’t mean doctors give up. You might still need future treatment to prevent worsening or to address inevitable worsening caused by the injury. For example, some shoulder rotator cuff injuries are so severe they eventually create the need for a shoulder replacement. Future treatment can be a part of both accident injury and workers’ comp settlements.
If the doctor finds you’ve reached MMI and your injury’s permanent, she gives you a permanent impairment rating.
Where does that come from? The book, of course.
The American Medical Association wrote “the book” about permanent injury severity. It’s called AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment, also known as the AMA Guides. Doctors are supposed to follow it to give an accurate rating.
Here’s how it’s basically designed to work:
Worried you have suffered permanent impairment or injury? You’ve got a lot to lose without professional legal help. Get your questions answered in a free*, no pressure strategy session with a Spartanburg, SC personal injury attorney. Call toll free at (864) 582-0416 or fill out a Get Help Now form.
According to the AMA Guides, it’s the doctor’s job to give an unbiased assessment of your condition, including its effect on your ability to function and do basic daily activities. The AMA Guide instructs doctors to base ratings on four basic considerations:
Here’s a little about each:
NOTE: the next factors can be critical, as the AMA Guide gives a range of ratings for injuries. These factors can determine where the final rating falls within the range. To help the doctor assess these factors, she may order a functional capacity evaluation.
After the doctor considers all of this, she gives you a rating.
The question becomes, what do you do with it? That’s where an experienced injury lawyer can really help you. It’s your attorney’s job to paint the full picture and show how your permanent injury impacts your life. That’s often the most important thing we do to maximize the value of our clients’ cases. While there’s a lot of things we do to help, here’s the best reasons to hire: an injury attorney or a car/motorcycle accident attorney.
If you’re confused or worrying about handling your permanent injury case, fill out our Get Help Now form to get all your questions answered by an experienced Spartanburg injury attorney.
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