A reckless driver can send you to the road surface to suffer devastating injuries.
You could heal over weeks or months, but to return to your normal life, you may need help relearning the routine things you did to get through each day. That will likely involve some expensive sessions with an Occupational Therapist.
The costs for this important care should be paid in full by the at-fault driver’s car insurance provider. While waiting on a settlement check, there are also ways for riders to delay medical bills and get expensive therapy bills reduced.
Who Pays Occupational Therapy Costs?
After a motorcycle accident, at-fault drivers would usually be responsible for all medical costs that victims were left with. When doctors feel therapy is necessary, occupational therapy costs and physical therapy costs are refunded too.
Motorcyclists would file an injury claim and seek full reimbursement for their medical costs, including therapy bills. But coverage isn’t automatic. Patients would usually have to negotiate with auto insurers over what they should receive. This is definitely a challenge with factors that aren’t as easily added up, such as estimates on future care and therapy that may be needed.
Car insurance adjusters will also be doing their best to limit what victims receive. Insurers will often try to shift blame to motorcyclists because they think they are easy targets. Adjusters will also question the severity of injuries, saying that victims only needed an ER visit and certainly don’t need occupational therapy sessions.
A Bakersfield motorcycle accident lawyer is a protection against these and other tactics meant to rob injured motorcyclists of compensation. A lawyer gathers the facts of what happened and uses them to push back on any false claim. A lawyer also uses that pressure to often negotiate for much more for the victim. This can be much more than a victim could secure by handling a case themselves.
Why Injured Riders Need Occupational Therapy
Riders can be traveling down Ming Avenue or Highway 178 and suddenly get wiped out by a distracted driver. They could require immediate surgery, or a cast or brace afterward. But they might also require occupational therapy once their wounds have healed.
Brown University Health explains the aim of Occupational Therapy for motorcycle accident victims:
“Occupational therapy helps people of all ages return to the activities that are most important to them after an illness or injury. In essence, our “occupations” are all of the activities that occupy our time.”
The term “occupation” doesn’t just mean work tasks. It’s everything we do every day that we often take for granted.
Brown University Occupational Therapists (OTs) discuss the common steps in occupational therapy programs:
- Starting with relearning basic activities such as bathing, child care, and washing laundry.
- Restoring the rider’s ability to fulfil their roles in society, such as employees, students, and parents.
- Instruction on wound care.
- Therapy to restore control over injured limbs and range of motion.
- Instruction on the use of medical equipment to help give patients freedom in their lives, including orthotics.
- Help for motorcyclists with brain injuries to restore their independence at home.
- Skills needed to return to the road for motorcycle trips.
- Help with completing daily tasks while coping with injury pain.
These are benefits that all accident victims could require. Unfortunately, car insurance companies can decline to cover these important steps in recovery. Or they can try to.
Your attorney would work with your doctors to establish how long you could need surgical care, home care, and therapy. Then your lawyer reviews each settlement offer. If it might leave you short on money to cover the months ahead, it’ll be rejected, and your lawyer demands more.
When Motorcycle Accident Victims Are Made to Wait
Getting new hospital bills or occupational therapy bills each week, while being unable to work, is a recipe for bankruptcy. Car insurance companies delay their settlements while disputing who is at fault and hold back settlements. It’s a position many motorcycle accident victims and their families are left in.
But a skilled attorney can speed the process up and has ways to help victims hang on until they receive full compensation.
A lawyer may be able to guide victims to doctors and therapists who are okay with not getting paid immediately. Under a medical lien agreement, healthcare providers give consent to hold off on payment until motorcyclists have received a settlement check.
Maison Law can also sometimes get bills reduced for patients in need. They would have to pay back less. It’s also an option when health insurance companies come seeking part of a victim’s settlement to repay the medical care they’ve already covered. It’s a process called subrogation. Maison Law can sometimes get these payments reduced.
The entire time, your attorney would be watching car insurance companies closely to make sure they weren’t making victims wait for support for no reason. Your attorney knows who to contact at insurance companies to get results. Your attorney can also report car insurance companies that prolong a response to an injury claim for longer than state law allows.
Contact a Bakersfield Motorcycle Accident Attorney
Maison Law offers free case reviews to all injured motorcycle accident victims and their families. We’ll help you determine the best path to getting the most out of your injury claim so you can pay for occupational therapy and return to your rides.
If we can’t help you earn more, we’ll tell you that. We’ll also point you in the right direction for winning your case by filing it yourself.
But if you need our help to earn more, you don’t have to stress about having the money to hire one. We work on behalf of clients with no upfront costs. We are only paid if your case is won. Then our fee comes out of a settlement check the car insurance company must write.
