Every year, around 50,000 people die in car accidents. Even mild accidents can often shock the daily lives of motorists who are affected by these incidents. You might actually need to go to the hospital even after being in a simple fender bender. In order to fully recover, surgery is required by numerous car accident injuries. Surgery after a car accident and the recovery period that follows can end up costing you a lot of money and time. If someone else’s reckless or careless action caused an auto accident and injured you, you should not be required to pay for the surgery that you need in order to heal.
In this article, we will be discussing some of the more common surgeries you may need after becoming injured during a car accident, what the surgeries might cost, and how to ensure that the individual who is at fault for your injuries pays for them. Contact the experienced Houston car accident lawyers at McDonald Worley to learn more..
Common Surgeries Needed After a Car Accident
Every year in the United States car accidents continue to increase, and each year Americans drive more than three billion miles.. With these kinds of numbers, unfortunately, accidents are inevitable.
Collectively, Americans spend more than one million days recovering in the hospital from auto accident injuries. Surgery is required to correct many of these injuries, including:
Knee Injuries
Knees are often injured in car accidents. An individual’s knees can become twisted in an unnatural way or slam into the car’s dashboard in a cash. Surgery is often required to fix the resulting damage to the cartilage, ligaments, and bones in the knee.
Following surgery, a knee injury often requires months or even years of physical therapy and rehabilitation. If you need to have a knee replacement done, the average cost for the surgery is around $50,000. That is not a small sum of money – many individuals will need assistance to pay for this surgery, and our attorneys know how to obtain it.
Spinal Injuries
Extreme forces are exerted by collisions on vehicles as well as the human bodies that are inside of them. Occupants can get jolted, bounced, and thrown around, and that can cause severe injuries to their spinal cords and spinal columns.
Vertebrae can crack. Discs can rupture. Those injuries often need surgery to repair and then years of rehabilitation following surgery. Victims might experience chronic pain for the remainder of their lives. Victims might need emergency surgery in serious cases to relieve swelling and pressure that can cause paralysis due to a spinal cord injury. The costs for spinal surgery can vary widely, but often cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Back Injuries
Extreme emotional and physical pain can be inflicted by back injuries, along with plenty of financial pain. Every year, more than 500,000 Americans have to file for personal bankruptcy due to not being able to pay their medical bills. Make sure you don’t become a statistic! Hire a trustworthy car accident injury lawyer may increase your chances of obtaining financial compensation and avoid financial ruin.
Traumatic Brain Injuries
Commonly called TBIs, traumatic brain injuries commonly occur in car accidents. The mildest type of TBI is concussions, while the most severe cases result in permanent disabilities and impairments. Those injuries happen when a person suffers a jolt or blow to the head during a car accident.
Some brain injuries are the result of brain tissue being directly damaged. However, they can become worse, when there are swelling and bleeding involved. Emergency surgery after a car accident can help to relieve these conditions and minimize the amount of harm caused by a brain injury. However, it can cost up to tens of thousands of dollars. Also, long term care following surgery might be necessary as well.
Broken Bones
Vehicle occupants are often left with broken bones after being involved in a car accident. Although many bone breaks do heal with fairly straightforward medical care, fractures that are more complex might require surgery and hardware to be implanted in order to repair and stabilize the bone of the accident victim. Those surgeries can cost thousands of dollars, and the economic hardship can be doubled or tripled when multiple surgeries are required to repair a fracture.
Internal Injuries
Some of the most dangerous and severe injuries that an individual can suffer in a car accident are internal injuries. Internal bleeding, collapsed lungs, ruptured organs, and other kinds of internal injuries often require extensive surgery that can cost tens of thousands of dollars or even more. Numerous internal injuries also can result in long-term health complications to add even more to a patient’s medical expenses.
How to Pay for Expensive Medical Procedures
You don’t want to ever rush the process of recovering from auto accident injuries. While you are recuperating, you are bound to miss some work. A severe injury might put you out of work indefinitely or it could make it impossible for you to perform the same job that you did prior to the accident.
That places you in a very precarious position, where you have a pile of medical bills as your cash flow slows down to a trick and your paid time off is used up.
However, the law can help in these types of situations. All of us agree that car accidents shouldn’t end up bankrupting an individual who was not at fault for causing the crash to begin with. That is why, with assistance from a skilled and experienced car accident injury lawyer, car accident victims can take legal action in order to receive compensation from at-fault parties. The damages that are available will vary from one case to the next, but nearly always include the direct economic expenses of accident injuries, such as lost wages and medical expenses.
Lawsuits, of course, do not occur overnight. In the meantime, you might need to find ways of covering some of your medical care costs. For many individuals, paying for their medical care following a car accident comes down to determining which insurance policy may cover the procedures they need..
They can include the following:
– Personal injury protection insurance. Your car insurance policy, depending on which state you live in, might include personal injury protection coverage that insures you for your injury expenses from a car accident. If you drive or own a vehicle, a personal injury protection policy might work as the primary insurance for paying for your medical expenses up to the specified limit.
– Health insurance. This insurance can cover some healthcare costs following a car accident for victims who have health insurance.. Of course, they may still be left with coverage limits, deductibles, and co-pays.
– Workers’ compensation insurance. If you were involved in a car accident at work, then your medical expenses to care for your injuries will be covered by workers’ compensation insurance..
If you do have insurance that covers your medical care costs following a car accident and you also take legal action for damages, then your insurance company will be entitled to be reimbursed for whatever payments it makes for you before your case is resolved. Speak to an experienced auto accident attorney to learn more about how your insurer can pay for your medical expenses while you are waiting for a legal claim to be resolved.
Dangers of Insurance Settlement
Here is a very important tip for you: Make sure that you don’t confuse your own insurance coverage available with another person’s insurance that offers to pay for your medical costs.
If the other driver’s insurer contacts you following a car accident, be very careful! That insurer is not working in your best interests. It means just one thing if they offer you a settlement: The individual who bought insurance from the company most likely is legally liable to you, and the insurer is looking to pay as little as possible for the liability.
These types of direct settlement offers are a devious insurance tactic. The insurance company is hoping you need money right away and you will jump at whatever settlement amount they offer.
Don’t fall victim to this type of tactic! Don’t let an insurance company take advantage of you. When you agree to a settlement you give up your right for taking further legal action. Don’t give those rights away too cheap. Work with a lawyer instead who can evaluate the amount of money that you deserve to get for the car accident injuries you have suffered (including surgery costs), and who has the experience and skills to negotiate with defense attorneys and insurance companies for a fair settlement.
Six Steps You Should Take Following a Car Accident
The specific steps that you take right after a car accident will play a critical role in being able to recover compensation from at-fault parties. To protect your legal rights, well-being, and health, follow these steps:
- Call 911. That might sound obvious, but since it is so important we want to emphasize it. Following a car accident, you should always call 911 so hat emergency medical personnel and police respond to the accident scene. That also ensures that your accident is reported to the right authorities, crash reports are generated, and you have access immediately to potentially life-saving medical assistance for your injuries.
- Take photos. If you are able to move about the accident scene, be sure to take as many photos as you can, including photos of the road surface, vehicles, and surrounding area.
- Talk to witnesses. If you notice anyone who witnessed your accident, try to write down their names and their contact information so that your lawyer can follow up with the witnesses. Their statements could help you obtain compensation from parties that are at-fault for the accident.
- Seek additional medical attention. Once you have been given medical assistance at the accident scene, always go to your regular doctor as a follow-up to be evaluated for any potential hidden injuries. Some serious injuries – including ones you could have for the rest of your life – may not present symptoms right away. Don’t risk your health! Get follow-up care. Also, the medical records that are generated when you visit the doctor can end up being important evidence to document your compensation claims.
- Keep a journal of your personal injuries. As you are recovering from your injuries and surgery, you might want to forget about all of the trauma that you have experienced. We completely understand, but we have also found that keeping a journal of your recovery and healing process can help to put into words all of the difficulty and pain you are experiencing. This kind of record can be very valuable to your lawyer when seeking compensation for all of the damage that a car accident has done to you as well as your family.
- Call a car accident injury attorney.. Don’t wait to get legal advice until your life is turned upside down by a car accident. It gets harder and hard to collect the crucial evidence that is needed for your case the more time passes. Proving another person’s liability gets more and more difficult, particularly when you are trying to do it yourself. Get an attorney to work for you as soon as possible to give yourself the best chance to recover all of the compensation that you deserve and need for your injuries.
For More Information, Call a Car Accident Injury Attorney
Car accidents can cause injuries that inflict serious financial, emotional, and physical pain. Money cannot ease your discomfort while recovering from surgery after a car accident. However, it can replace the income you have lost, pay for your medical care, and provide you with the support that you need to move forward with your life.
For more information on what your legal rights are regarding a car accident injury that requires surgery, contact an experienced car accident injury law firm in Houston. They can answer whatever questions you might have and help you determine what first step to take towards receiving justice.