Life Care Plans in SCI: How Future Needs Are Calculated
A spinal cord injury (SCI) can change every part of your life. Depending on where the cord is damaged, an SCI may cause paralysis, loss of sensation, bowel and bladder dysfunction, chronic pain, spasticity, breathing problems, blood pressure instability, and other serious complications. Over time, many people with SCI also face pressure injuries, urinary complications, respiratory illness, bone loss, fractures, and repeat hospitalizations.
Vehicle crashes and falls account for nearly 70% of all SCI cases. Incomplete tetraplegia, which impacts sensory and motor function, is the most common complication.
Lifetime SCI costs can reach into the millions, even before lost wages and other indirect losses are added in. Speaking to a Providence SCI attorney who understands how future needs must be documented, projected, and fought for helps to ensure you are not left holding the bag.
Schedule a No-Cost Case Review With an SCI Attorney Today
If you or someone you love is living with a spinal cord injury, you may require years of treatment, equipment, home changes, transportation support, and personal care. Our Providence SCI attorneys can review what your injury is likely to cost not just now, but years from now, and help you pursue compensation that reflects the full scope of your losses.
Call Mandell, Boisclair & Mandell at (401) 273-8330 to schedule your free and confidential consultation at our Providence office. If your injury makes travel difficult, we can come to you to discuss your situation, rights, and options.
Costs Associated with SCI
The costs associated with SCI usually come in waves. First, there’s emergency care, surgery, hospitalization, and inpatient rehabilitation. Long-term treatment for a spinal cord injury is a coordinated process, often involving rehabilitation physicians, nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, case managers, psychologists, nutrition professionals, and more. Services from each of these professionals will come with their own costs, which can quickly become overwhelming.
Common SCI-related costs include:
- Emergency transport, trauma care, surgery, and hospitalization
- Inpatient rehabilitation and follow-up therapy
- Wheelchairs, cushions, lifts, braces, and other durable medical equipment
- Prescription drugs and ongoing supplies
- Home modifications such as ramps and accessibility changes
- Transportation modifications and accessible travel accommodations
- Attendant care, nursing support, or facility care
- Treatment for pressure sores, infections, respiratory problems, and other secondary complications
- Vocational or educational support
The numbers are staggering. Lifetime care for SCI is often millions of dollars. These figures do not include indirect losses, such as wages, fringe benefits, and productivity. They also do not account for the intangibles that result from an SCI. These include pain, mental suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life.
SCI also carries a high risk of recurring medical expenses. The NSCISC reports that about 29% of people with traumatic SCI are rehospitalized at least once during any given year after injury. The most common reason is genitourinary disease, but skin, respiratory, digestive, circulatory, and musculoskeletal conditions are also common causes of rehospitalization. This means that even when the initial trauma care ends, medical care following SCI is often far from over.
How Costs Are Calculated by an SCI Attorney
A life care plan is a dynamic document based on assessment, data analysis, research, and published standards. It lays out your recurrent and future needs along with associated costs. In an SCI case, this document helps detail the seriousness of your injury with an evidence-based projection of what the future is likely to require.
A strong Providence SCI attorney will use medical records, provider recommendations, rehabilitation evidence, and real-world cost data to build your life care plan. In some cases, this requires working with outside experts, such as physiatrists, economists, vocational rehabilitation specialists, accessibility specialists, and others who can assist in analyzing your needs and reevaluating the plan when circumstances change.
Crafting a truly personalized life care plan may require looking at:
- Your diagnosis, neurological level, and functional status
- The therapies, physician visits, medications, and supplies you will need
- Your need for a wheelchair, power chair, lift, transfer equipment, and replacement parts
- Whether ramps, wider doorways, accessible bathrooms, or other renovations are needed
- If your injury will require attendant care, case management, transportation changes, or vocational support
- What medical complications are likely over time
After your needs are identified, the next step is duration and value. Life care planners use prognosis and life expectancy data to estimate how long each service, item, or support will be needed. Then, an economist can translate those future needs into present-value dollars while accounting for inflation, replacement schedules, and the timing of expected expenses.
All of this is, of course, no easy task. Trusting your claim to an experienced spinal cord injury attorney helps to ensure no stone is left unturned and the full amount of damages you are owed can be sought.
Why Choose Our Providence SCI Attorneys?
At Mandell, Boisclair & Mandell, we have spent nearly 50 years helping people in Rhode Island with catastrophic injury claims. These cases require a clear understanding of the long-term physical, emotional, and financial harm associated with SCI, and the resources to work with experts who can explain what the future will look like.
Our award-winning lawyers understand this. We take great care to ensure all of your current and future needs are accounted for when determining the value of your claim. And we fight tooth and nail to secure the fair and full compensation you deserve.
SCI raises questions about whether you can safely return home, continue to work, or ever again live the life you were accustomed to before your injury. The compensation you are awarded must accurately reflect what your injury has and may continue to take from you.
Our Providence SCI attorneys know spinal cord injuries are rarely simple and never inexpensive. We are thorough in our evaluations and tireless in our pursuit of justice. We are ready to take your case as far as necessary, all the way to trial if needed, to help you obtain enough to truly cover your damages.
Contact a Providence SCI Attorney for Free
If you or a loved one suffered an SCI in Rhode Island, contact Mandell, Boisclair & Mandell online or call us today to schedule your cost-free, no-obligation consultation. Our Providence SCI attorneys can help evaluate the likely lifetime cost of care, determine what evidence is needed for a strong life care plan, and fight for compensation that truly reflects the real future impacts of your injury.
