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An accident victim often suffers soft injuries. Those are the result of harm to a soft tissue, such as a ligament or a tendon. Unlike evidence of a broken bone, proof of such injuries cannot be obtained by viewing an X-ray or a scan. Yet any one of those seemingly invisible injuries can produce chronic pain.
Chronic pain can make it next to impossible for an accident victim to perform his or her job-related responsibilities. At the same time, such painful sensations can impair the injured victim’s ability to carry out simple tasks at home. In the presence of evidence that a given policy holder cannot hold a job and cannot carry out daily tasks one thing become clear. The company that has insured that same policy holder should be required to provide disability payments.
The response expected from the insurer
The insurer will seek information on the history of the victim’s pain. Has that same, currently painful area of the victim’s body become a source of pain at some point in the past? If it has, then that fact could be used to weaken the argument in support of the contention that the accident caused the same pain.
In addition, the insurance company will want to know exactly how the pain is being treated. Moreover, how is the painful injury responding to that particular treatment? Such information provides the insurer’s legal team with the chance to assess the degree to which the victim has made an obvious effort to treat the incapacitating and painful injury.
The doctor’s role, in light of that response
A good family physician will keep careful records, records that can be used to deny the prior existence of any injury. Hence, the physician’s records can act as a replacement for the missing X-ray or scan. Furthermore, an expert cannot dispute what observations a doctor has made, and has added to a patient’s record.
By the same token, a physician’s report should include information on how a given condition has been treated. If a pain pill has been used and found inadequate, then the doctor might prescribe a stronger medication. The patient’s response to that stronger medication might offer evidence of the degree to which the patient’s pain persists.
A family physician can also refer a patient to analysts and clinics. The same medical professional might even suggest the appropriateness of referrals to a neurologist or a psychiatrist. Such referrals could be used to cast doubt on the statements made by any of the expert witnesses that had been hired by the insurer.
Each of those witnesses can be expected to offer details about similar cases. On the other hand, the information from the family doctor will focus on just one case, the one that concerns the plaintiff. For that reason, the physician’s statements ought to be more convincing in the eyes of the jurors.