EP02 S01: Will Covid-19 Impact My Personal Injury Lawsuit?
A lot of clients have been asking if I can’t go to my doctor because of COVID-19, is it going to hurt my case?
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Full Transcript:
Welcome to Trial Stories, an informative discussion of civil justice, with a focus on the human story. I’m your host, Arkady Frekhtman, a New York City trial lawyer, passionate about helping serious injury victims and their families.
Hi, good afternoon everyone. I’m here working from home with my daughter, Anastasia.
So a lot of clients have been asking if I can’t go to my doctor because of COVID-19, is it going to hurt my case? The answer is no, it’s not going to hurt your case, because some doctors who are considered essential are still open. But most doctors like physical therapy offices, chiropractic offices, could be closed. And if a doctor is closed, no one is going to them because of this Corona 19, COVID-19 pandemic. So obviously, if no one is going because of safety reasons, then you’re not going, and it’s not going to hurt your case. The insurance company is not going to be able to say that, you have a gap in treatment because you’re not going. You could be very injured. You could be going three times, five times a week. You could be wanting to go, needing to go, medically, but you can’t go because of the shutdown. So it’s not going to hurt your case.
And there are two things you can do. Number one is something called telemedicine. So things like Zoom or Skype, or even FaceTime, you could do that with your doctor. And if your doctor makes a record and keeps a medical record of your injuries, of your treatment, of your physical therapy, then later on when this whole thing is over and we’re back to doing jury trials, that’ll be admissible in a court of law. And you could actually use that to get more money on your case. So that’s number one.
And then number two would be if you can’t even do telemedicine because your doctor doesn’t offer it. So now you would have to do, what’s known as a diary. You keep a diary, right, sometimes?
Yeah. So you keep a diary of your medical treatment. And you basically say, what kind of physical therapy you do, what time you do the physical therapy, how long the session is, what you do. And that will be your record. So if somebody has a serious injury and they’re keeping track of their therapy, keeping track of their symptoms, the more information the better, that also can be admissible at trial and will actually work to get you more money for your personal injury case. So I hope this has been helpful. Thank you so much and have a great day. Stay safe out there.
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