How Much Future Medical Care Can You Receive in Your Work Comp Case?

How Much Future Medical Care Can You Receive in Your Work Comp Case?

Hi everyone! Dustin here from lawatyourside.com where we provide real legal help when you really need it.

A question I commonly get is how much future medical care am I entitled to receive?

So in your workers' compensation case, if you suffered work injuries, whatever parts of the body you suffered a work injury on, you're entitled to future medical care for life on those parts of bodies…

So if you hurt your hand or you hurt your back and the doctors deem, "Yes, you're back was in fact injured from work, you’re hand was in fact injured from work," you're entitled to future medical care for the rest of your life on those parts of body. Now, some applicants want that. They want to say, "Okay, well I want to keep my future medical care open and utilize it when I need to," but a lot of applicants, what they choose to do instead is what's called "Close It Out" meaning instead of keeping it open, you can do what's called a buyout of your future medical care.

Now, the insurance company is not required to buy out your future medical care but it's an option that they often will offer so you can close your case, they can close your case; the case shuts down, everything moves on. Because if you keep your future medical care open, that means they have to keep their file open, and a lot of times, they don't like to do that; they like to close the case. So a lot of times, what you'll see is they'll provide to offer some money to you to buy out your future medical care.

Now, how much is that going to be? Well, obviously, that will depend on the case. If the doctors say that you may need surgery on the back for example, the buyout of future medical care might be significantly more. If the doctors say that you just need medication and conservative treatment or injections, the buyout of future medical care would be a lot less. So how much will really depend on the case.

Generally speaking, a conservative future medical care might go from $10,000 to $15,000. If there's a surgery and there's a neutral doctor who says, "Yeah, you need a back surgery," that could get up to $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, $60,000, sometimes even more, depending on the case, depending on the insurance carrier, depending on your willingness to resolve the case, depending on your willingness to get the back surgery, and also depending on what kind of back surgery that you may or may not need.

So it's really hard to tell in terms of future medical care how much you're entitled to but always know that the insurance companies never have to buy it out necessarily and you never have to close it out. That's usually some sort of extra agreement that both of you and the insurance carrier decide upon in order to close your case.

If you want further assistance with your work-related injury or you want to talk to a lawyer and get your questions answered or you want us to represent you in your workers' compensation case, please feel free to give us a call at the number below or click the link below and fill out the submission form, and we will do our best and work our hardest to ensure that we give you all the benefits that you are entitled to under the law. And we hope you have a smooth, efficient case that runs through so you can get back to your healthiest that you can be and also receive all the benefits that you're entitled to. Thanks so much.