The answer to this question is simple. You get the only life care planner you can trust.  

When someone suffers an impairment they may be facing both a physical and functional abnormality, loss, or disfigurement, as well as the potential for psychological damage from their injury or incident. It must be determined whether these impairments will be permanent of resolve over time. 

If an impairment is likely to be permanent, one of the challenges of getting an adjustor to compensate a client’s future medical care is adaquately answering the adjustors’ question of “possibilty vs. probability of lifetime impairment”. 

How do you achieve this?  You must first prove to the insurance company that your client has suffered permanent impairment and that ongoing care will be needed to manage those impairments. While it’s relatively easy to prove the presence of physical impairments such as, decreased range of motion, weakness, muscle spasms; etc., the real difficulty lies in proving how these impairments will affect the patient throughout the rest of their life. It takes a very seasoned clinician with experience treating these types of impairments over the course of many years to have the ability to know and opine on how these impairments may affect the patient in the future. 

Typically, maximum medical improvement (MMI) or maximum rehabilitative potential (MRP) determinations will be made by medical and rehabilitative specialists during the patient’s treatment. After the patient has reached MMI or MRP, the remaining impairments are labeled as permanent. 

It’s common for opinions on “permanency of impairment” to vary among doctors and therefore conflicting opinions can arise in regards to what impairments are permanent and what future treatment, if any, those impairments will require throughout the rest of the patient’s life.  

So how do we know which doctors’ opinions are correct (or most plausible) for the continued or future care of the impairments? It really comes down to the doctor and their experience treating these impairments over the course of many years.  A doctor that has been in the trenches with these types of patients throughout their treatment, is the one that has the credibility to make these determinations. They can also back up their opinion with decades of clinical decision making processes, which in essence, provide the best insight into clinical outcomes. 

Who better to opine on the future care requirements of your client than a doctor life care planner who not only understands your client’s injuries, but also their response to treatment, diagnostic pathophysiology, and their impairment progression over time. Dr. Poppie has served the legal industry as a treating clinician, damages expert, and educator for over 20 years. He specializes in the evaluation and treatment of multi-trauma injuries related to motor vehicle collisions, standard of care and malpractice claims, and as a damages expert to help educate insurance companies and both plaintiff and defense counsel to provide a viable pathway for obtaining a fair settlement based on ethics, research, and evidence-based standards of care. 

As a certified doctor Life Care Planner, Dr. Poppie helps to guide attorneys through all phases of their case and documents impairments with accurate associated costs that are reliable in educating opposing sides as to the true extent of injury. Evidence-based practice guidelines are utilized in all reports in order to ensure the needed criteria is met to withstand scrutiny within all legal jurisdictions. 

Dr. Poppie founded Injury Reporting Consultants to help attorneys and insurance companies resolve personal injury cases through medical analysis and reporting. Injury Reporting Consultants is a collaborative team of dedicated medical professionals using their knowledge to ensure fair outcomes for all parties in personal injury cases.

Recognized specialties include Motor Vehicle Collision, Life Care Planning, Medical Cost Projection, Functional Capacity Evaluation, Onsite Job Analysis, Functional Impairment and Disability, Workplace Injuries, Orthopedic Physical Therapy, Standards of Care, Current Best Practices, Physical Therapy Malpractice, Negligence, File and Medical Record Review, Improper Documentation, Expert Rebuttal Reports, and Expert Testimony.

If you have a client that you would like to discuss their need for an expert report, please contact me directly at 720-982-2000 or email me at: brad@injuryreportingconsultants.com