After sustaining an injury in an accident, it is crucial for you and any passengers you have to seek medical care as soon as possible after the incident. There are a few reasons why receiving prompt medical attention is important – your well-being is of the utmost importance, and the insurance carriers are going to look at the timing of the medical treatment you receive.
Right after a vehicle accident occurs, it is not uncommon for individuals involved not to feel much pain, and sometimes individuals feel no pain at all. This can be deceiving. When a crash occurs, adrenaline begins to course through the human body, which is an evolutionary process that is developed to allow humans to get away from dangerous situations before the pain sets in.
Unfortunately, this can also lead to an illusion that that person has not sustained an injury after a crash happens. There are times when the signs and symptoms of accident injuries begin to appear in the hours and days following the collision, and sometimes, there has already been irreparable damage as a result.
It is crucial for every vehicle crash victim to go see a doctor right away. This could include taking an ambulance to the hospital from the crash scene or going right to an emergency clinic or primary care physician as soon as possible after the incident scene is clear. Every car crash victim has to use their judgment as to when and how quickly they need to go to the doctor, but there are two important reasons why we encourage doing so quickly:
Why do insurance carriers care how quickly you seek medical care after a crash occurs?
The very nature of insurance carriers means that they are looking to minimize how much they pay in compensation when a claim gets made. This helps improve their profit margin, but it does not help claimants.
On the surface, the justification that insurance carriers give for minimizing claims if a person does not seek immediate medical care makes sense – if a person did not seek medical care, then they must not have been injured, right?
As we mentioned above, it is not uncommon for individuals to experience the signs and symptoms of injuries hours or days after a crash. This does not mean that there was no injury sustained. However, seeking medical care later rather than sooner will give the insurance carriers a point to push back on as they try to limit compensation.
Regardless of whether or not you sought medical care right after a crash or in the days after the collision occurred, you need to work with an attorney who can help recover compensation for losses. If another driver caused your accident, you should be able to recover compensation for your medical bills, lost income, pain and suffering damages, property damage expenses, and more.