Should I go see a doctor after a car wreck in Virginia which was not my fault?
Yes. To the extent you believe you are injured you should definitely go get medical treatment as soon as possible after an automobile accident. If your injuries were severe enough likely you went to the emergency room of a local hospital in an ambulance. Even if you didn’t go to the emergency room in an ambulance, if you realize that you do need to get checked out and get medical care you should get someone to take you to the hospital emergency room as soon as possible typically within the first day or so after a wreck. Many times neck and back injuries caused by a car accident will feel worse on Day 2 after the wreck then they did on the day of the wreck. The reason for this is that the body is initially in shock and there’s so much adrenaline flowing at the scene of the wreck that you may not even realize how banged up you are until you’ve had a chance to calm down and get home.
If it has been a day or two after the wreck and you haven’t yet received any medical treatment at the emergency room then you can still go get treatment if you need to at an ER, an urgent care facility, your private primary care doctor, or a chiropractor or specialist’s office. The main suggestion I have as an experienced personal injury attorney is don’t delay in getting your care. If you wait more than a week to go get seen after a wreck the insurance company will start claiming that you must not have been very hurt or you would have made the effort to get seen by some kind of a doctor. Although there’s lots of reasons including not having health insurance that could cause you not to go get seen immediately you need to prevent their even having this argument by getting necessary treatment as soon as you are able.
One of the reasons to hire a personal injury attorney in Virginia after a car accident which is not your fault is so that we can help discuss your options with you. To the extent that you do not have health insurance or a family doctor that you have a good relationship with then we can suggest appropriate options for treatment. There are even some options to see doctors including chiropractors and orthopedists who will essentially treat the patient on credit and not require payment until the case is resolved if you are represented by my law firm. One of the reasons that you’ll want to go to an experienced personal injury attorney like me is that I can direct you to some of these resources available in the community which I have developed over 25 years of personal injury practice in Hampton Rose and elsewhere in Virginia.
Follow-up care whether in the form of medication, physical therapy and diagnostic testing like MRIs can all be handled by appropriate physicians on a case-by-case basis. The starting point is to get in the hands of some doctor who you trust, who knows that you’ve been in a car accident which wasn’t your fault and to tell them in full detail what parts of your body were hurt and how you were feeling. The most important thing is to have your health and to get the right medical care. That is far more important than any personal injury claim. However, getting to the right medical care as soon as possible will have the benefit of getting you back on your feet and feeling better sooner and make for a clearer, easier and stronger personal injury case too.
