Whether it’s a car wreck, a slip and fall or some other kind of accident, everyone gives you the same advice: Get a medical evaluation right away. Don’t try to “tough it out” or wait several days to see whether the pain goes away.
That advice is only partly about protecting your health. Some injuries do not cause immediate or obvious symptoms, and early treatment can stop them from getting worse. However, timely medical care also protects any potential personal injury claim you may have.
Delayed care creates an opportunity for questions
Medical records help connect an injury to the accident. If there is a long delay before the first appointment or significant gaps during treatment, the insurance company may question how the injury occurred, how serious it is or whether you did everything reasonably possible to mitigate your own losses.
For example, imagine that you decide to wait after a car wreck to get your neck and back pain checked out. You may have initially only felt a little bruised and sore, and figured those symptoms would clear up on their own. By the time you realized the pain was getting worse, not better, two weeks had gone by. The other party’s insurer may argue that if you’d had a genuine accident-related injury, you’d have sought help sooner and that something else that occurred since the wreck may have actually caused your pain.
You also need to be careful about treatment gaps that occur after the initial medical visit following an accident. Missing follow-up appointments, stopping your physical therapy prematurely or waiting months to consult a recommended specialist can give the insurer the room to claim that:
- Your injury wasn’t as painful or limiting as you claim
- You had recovered, and your current problems are unrelated to the accident
- You would have fully recovered if you had followed medical advice
Ultimately, it’s important to remember that pain from an accident can be masked by adrenaline, and it can take a while for inflammation to set in – so get checked out by a doctor, even if you feel reasonably fine. Once you have begun treatment for any injuries, make sure that you keep your appointments and follow any reasonable treatment plan your doctor offers.
Timely, consistent care supports your physical recovery and creates a clear medical record of your injuries that connects back to the incident in question. Those records could become important if the at-fault party’s insurer later challenges your claim.