How Life Care Planning Can Help Your Case?

Not all injuries are easy to bounce back from. Catastrophic ones, as well as serious chronic health conditions more often than not require long-term care. 

This is where life care planning New York comes in. Lawyers usually leverage the services of life care planners to develop care plans for patients suffering from debilitating health conditions that include anything birth-related, along with traumatic brain contusion, amputation, burns, and spinal cord injury.

Let’s explore life care planning New York in more detail to see how it may help your client’s case.

What Is A Life Care Plan?

The point of leveraging life care planning New York is to come up with a life care plan - a document that outlines the medical and supportive care requirements of a person dealing with chronic conditions. 

This plan is then used by the families of the patients, rehabilitation professionals, as well as case managers in order to provide the best support and medical care for the patient. 

Equally important is the use of a life care plan in litigation to determine the projected costs and the type of continuing care needs of the patient. As such, life care planning New York can be useful in a variety of legal situations:

1. Workers’ compensation and personal injury cases such as medical malpractice

2. Civil lawsuits 

3. Elderly law cases where assets have to be protected

Life care plans are usually individualized to reflect the distinct needs of the patient. For instance, depending on the type of ailment, they can include:

1. Projected costs of evaluations

2. Projected costs of therapeutic modalities

3. Educational assessments and diagnostic testings

4. Wheelchair needs (including any accessories and maintenance)

5. Orthopedic equipment needs

6. Prosthetic or orthotic requirements

7. Home furnishings

8. Independent function aids

9. Medication

10. Supply needs

11. Home care needs

12. Facility care needs

13. Projected routine medical care

14. Projected surgical treatment 

15. Transportation needs

16. Home renovations

17. Recreational equipment

Still, not everything is accounted for. For example, treatment for complications usually isn’t outlined since the severity, likelihood, and date of onset are close to impossible to project. The same applies to future advances in medical technology as it relates to the patient’s needs.

The Process Of Creating A Life Care Plan

Life care planners usually follow an accepted methodology that ensures they deliver consistent results by adhering to a specific order of tasks while developing these plans. However, this doesn’t mean that the plan isn’t customized as the patient’s circumstances are what dictate the content of the plan. 

A critical step in developing a plan is the clinical interview with the patient and their family members. This helps the planner receive information that cannot be described in medical reports. In other words, the planner is able to understand the nuances of the full impact of the injury.

Before the interview, the planner will usually review patient records in detail. Armed with that knowledge, they’ll be able to conduct a more thorough interview and potentially clarify any errors in the medical records.

To build an accurate patient profile, the life care planner will use all rehabilitation, vocational, medical, and psychological records available. This accomplishes many things: it identifies all the aspects of the ailment and helps the planner determine if the patient requires additional assessment to outline all their needs.

A deep review check of the records and the clinical interview will allow the planner to communicate more effectively about the intricacies of the case with the consultation and medical team. 

Sometimes the records may be incomplete so the life care planner will consult additional specialists about future evaluations, therapies, and evaluations. 

It’s also important to note that life care planning New York is a highly emotional job that necessitates communication with disabled individuals and their families. These conversations usually thread a fine line between professional and personal. By being familiar with all the records available, life care planners may gain a deeper understanding of their patient’s condition and their experience. This allows them to approach personal topics with a greater level of care and empathy.

How Life Care Planning New York Can Help Your Clients?

Dealing with a life-changing injury is challenging for everyone involved. Since this life care plan establishes an outline of future care, it helps guide the client and their family through the complex process of long-term care coordination and rehabilitation.

Additionally, it simplifies networking for patients and their families, and helps them establish contact with the right healthcare providers, but it also helps insurance companies with setting reserves. 

When talking about litigation, in most cases, there will be a dispute over the financial impact of the injury on the victim. Because these are serious ailments we are talking about, the patients may have challenges moving, speaking, and living independently. On top of that, they will have to deal with those challenges for long periods. 

Thus, the costs of treating and caring for these individuals are usually very high and for some, possibly astronomical and beyond reach. 

To ensure a fair outcome, lawyers may leverage life care planning to clarify this information. If needed, a life care planner can also testify in court about the projected costs of treatment. While this testimony is simply used to educate the jury and the judge about the nature of the patient’s injury, an expert opinion can make all the difference between an unfavorable settlement and success.

Help Your Clients Receive The Best Outcome Possible

Life care planning New York can help your clients receive the appropriate amount of care and financial assistance to cover their lifetime needs. It’s not just about winning cases -  it provides your client and their families hope that everything will go according to plan.

By hiring a life care planner, you’re strengthening your case and offering the affected parties some well-needed peace of mind.

Experts at OAS offer life care planning New York and have decades' worth of experience documenting the employment capacity, as well as medical needs of many injured individuals. In fact, we’re one of the most experienced firms in the field of life care planning and employability in the country.

Call us at 800-292-1919 or send an email to info@oasinc.org and give your client the best life care planning New York experience.