The “gap in treatment” argument in personal injury claims in North Carolina
Insurance adjusters have about 4 arguments other than the plain old, “Nu uh!” that they’ll use to try to devalue your claim. One of them is the old chestnut, “gap in treatment.”
What they’re referring to is a perceived delay between the accident and seeking treatment, or a period during your recovery where you aren’t treating for some reason. The long and short of it is that they believe that if you were hurt, you’d be in treatment. The problem with this is that potential jurors who might have to decide the value of your claim might buy this! This sort of folksy “logic” is just the sort of non-scientific but reasonable-sounding drivel that gets Republicans elected to this day, so we have to take it seriously. So how do we combat it?
The best way to combat it is NOT have a gap in treatment. As soon as you’re hurt, seek treatment. Don’t stop your treatment until you’re all better. Boom! No gap in treatment, no BS argument to deal with.
But that’s best case scenario, I get it. Here are some other suggestions to help you mitigate your problems with a gap in treatment:
- If you don’t get treatment immediately following your accident, hurry up and do it now. If “now” is more than a month after the accident, do what you want for your healthcare, but talk to an attorney about how this is going to impact the claim.
- If you can’t get treatment immediately, document what you’re suffering from in a pain journal. That way you’re at least documenting that you were suffering, and you can explain the need for the delay (travel, family obligations, work, etc.). THEN get to treatment as soon as you can.
- If you’re going to have to interrupt treatment for some reason, same thing, use your pain journal to kind of bridge the gap. Ideally, maybe you could seek treatment elsewhere if the delay is caused by travel.
This stuff is hard, which is why people get attorneys. If you have an injury claim and want help, call me at 919-929-2992.
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