Life Care Planning Explained

When someone is injured or ill to the point they will need lifetime care, what options do they have? Naturally, this can cause a lot of stress and pain for their loved ones as well, as it’s never easy to face the future of taking care of their disabled family member.

Enter physician life care planning.

In simple terms, it can be described as a method of planning out the lifetime needs of an individual with a disability.

Physician life care planning is an established field that can make a difference in litigation, and most importantly, in personal damage cases.

Different kinds of medical professionals can perform this important task. Read on to find out everything you need to know about physician life care planning and what this profession usually entails.

What is Physician Life Care Planning?

This service is performed with the goal of putting together a dynamic document known as a life care plan. It specifies the medical conditions, along with the medical requirements of chronically ill or injured individuals. Above all, a life care plan quantifies the cost of supplying these individuals with medically necessary goods and services over the duration of the care.

These documents are generally used in litigation, making the physician life care planning an integral part of properly documenting the damages in cases where an individual might have sustained a debilitating or catastrophic injury. 

A life care plan is patient-specific and specifies both quantitative and qualitative medical and life quality needs for disabled individuals. The goal is to ensure they can adequately plan for the future.

Who Are Life Care Planners?

As we briefly mentioned before, physician life care planning can be performed by a plethora of physicians and other medical professionals such as nurses and psychologists (including physicians who are retired). That isn’t to say the field is limited only to medical professionals as vocational experts can also perform this service without any problems. 

However, the specialty of the person who does physician life care planning matters a lot. In certain cases, some specialists will be a preferred option, depending on the medical condition of the client. For example, if the client is paralyzed, they can hire a rehab physician. If the client suffered a brain injury, a neurologist would be a good match. 

Additionally, since cases that require physician life care planning are often catastrophic and serious, a lawyer might be willing to pay a premium price for the credibility that a medical expert can bring to the table. 

Since physician life care planning falls under the umbrella of expert witness work, these professionals often testify in court and give their opinion on the necessity and costs of future care. Typically they won’t be required to comment on the quality of treatment provided by a different physician, since they’re not testifying in a medical malpractice case.

Preparing a life care plan is time-consuming and takes a lot of effort. As a result, life care planners can earn upwards of $15k per plan depending on the severity of the injuries. 

Types of life Care Plans 

The ability to perform activities of daily life (ADL) is a determining factor in the type of life care plan that a patient might need. Depending on the ADL ability, there are two types of plans:

1. Non-catastrophic: this life plan outlines the needs and treatment costs of people living with a physical disability or a chronic illness but partially have the ability to perform some or most activities of daily life, albeit with more difficulty and a significant loss of life quality.

2. Catastrophic: outlines the needs and treatment costs of people living with permanent mental or physical disabilities or illnesses who no longer have the ability to perform their daily life activities and as such, require constant care.

For instance, physician life care planning is required for different types of ailments like:

1. Polytrauma (injuries to multiple body parts and systems)
2. Spinal Cord Injury (it can be partial or complete and can lead to paraplegia or tetraplegia)
3. Traumatic Brain Injury
4. Burns
5. Chronic Pain
6. Brachial Plexus Injuries

Common Life Care Planning Services

We previously brushed on some of the activities typically performed by life care professionals. Let’s take a closer look at what these services usually consist of.

Independent Medical Evaluation

An independent medical evaluation is important for determining the degree of the disability and for adequately planning future care and its resulting costs.

It usually involves a healthcare professional who wasn’t a part of the patient’s and can provide an objective examination of the individual. Thus, during this evaluation, a healthcare professional can adequately assess the cause and outline the needed medical treatment of an illness or an injury. 

This step is especially important when liability is at issue.

Cost Analysis

When determining the cost of recommended services, life care planners use UCR (usual, customary, reasonable) rates. This is the amount usually paid for medical services in the local area and is based on what providers usually charge for the medical service.

Life care planning professionals usually look at multiple fields and can investigate the costs of all the required medical services. For instance, these include costs of surgery, primary care, physical therapy, medication, and so on.

Expert Witness Services

Who is an expert witness? They cannot be just anybody as it needs to be a person who has the necessary education, skill, and experience in a particular field. An expert witness is believed to have specialized knowledge that is beyond that of an average person.

Now, even though the life care planning certification is not mandatory it certainly helps and can aid the life planner's opinion to stand in court. The same applies to their level of expertise in the medical field. 

In court, if the life care planner provides an opinion outside of their area of expertise (i.e. a general physician providing their opinion on neurological injury) their testimony can be successfully challenged. In other words, the expert testimony of the life care planner can be disqualified by the trier of fact on the basis of the lack of specialized knowledge.

This is why the choice of a life care planning professional is a hugely impactful decision. To ensure that their testimony stands up to scrutiny, lawyers should always hire a physician on the basis of their certification and level of expertise.

A winning life care plan

Physician life care planning is never a simple matter if only for the fact it requires a lot of hard work on top of a mountain of knowledge and medical expertise. 

To help your clients receive the best level of care, you need to have a physician on your side who can help you with the creation of the winning life car plan. 

Here at OAS, we provide a comprehensive method of determining the exact care that an individual needs after experiencing a catastrophic injury. We will handle the extensive research and help provide your law firm with detailed data that can support the facts of your case. 

We’ve been doing this for almost 50 years and we’ve got it down to a science. While a comprehensive report usually takes upwards of six weeks to complete, if you’re in a bit of a time crunch, we can complete it in a week if your life is on the line. 

Call OAS at 800-292-1919 or send us an email at info@oasinc.org, and we can provide you with the best physician life care planning around.