subject: Life Care Plans For Crps [print this page] People with CRPS may want to hire a life care planner to estimate the costs of the injury over a lifetime. This is beneficial when conducting worker's compensation or personal injury claims related to CRPS.
Life care planners may have a background in medicine, nursing, vocational rehabilitation, or economics. They work with your physician to calculate dollar values for future damages caused by the CRPS condition. An economist then adjusts these costs for inflation and reduced the future damages to present value. One area in which a life care planner may calculate cost is in determining the value of household services that may need to be supplied by someone else. If you can no longer clean your house, for example, a life care planner or economist estimates the expense of hiring someone to do it.
Life care plans mainly take into account the costs for the following goods and services in the future:
1. Health care providers, including doctors, physical therapists, occupational therapists, psychologists, etc.
2. Medications
3. Loss of household services, such as cooking, cleaning, repairs, shopping, etc.
4. Personal attendant care, if you need someone to help with bathing, dressing,
transportation, etc.
5. Loss of wages or the capacity to earn wages
6. Appliances, such as shower stools, crutches, wheelchairs, etc.
7. Home modifications, needed particularly if you become confined to a wheelchair
8. Transportation, because even if you can drive, there are costs associated with numerous visits to doctors and therapists.
Life care plans vary beyond these essentials. Usually a lawyer hires the life care planner, and provides the planner with medical records as well as the phone numbers of the patient and treating physicians.
Cost of Future Treatment
Determining the cost of future treatments can be difficult. The life care planner may contact vendors, review supply catalogues, call pharmacies, etc. in a community similar to yours in order to determine costs.
The report should list one time costs as well as ongoing expenses. The goal is to be comprehensive because you cannot go back later and ask for more money. It is better to guarantee that every possible expense is covered in the beginning than discover an unexpected cost later.
Medication is one of the highest cost items on a CRPS life care plan. It usually includes several different drugs that come with a wide range of costs. Medication could easily cost $1000 dollars per month. In addition, new medication are constantly being brought onto the market, and this can accrue costs if you doctor thinks a new medication may be more beneficial.
