Describing Life Care Plans to Juries
According to David Ball, there is no such thing as a life care plan anymore. What we are really putting together for our client’s is a minimum life care plan. This is the minimum humane level of care for the safety and comfort of our client. Lifetime costs for medical treatment gets expensive. But we need to convey to juries that this big number is actually a floor and not a ceiling.
If new processes are developed in the future that can assist the client, there’s no money for it. This is a minimum life care plan.
If new medical techniques are developed, there’s no money for it. This is a minimum life care plan.
The life care plan calls for home health care of 8 hours during the day. The life care plan does not call for someone to be there in the evening or to spend the night with them. This is a minimum life care plan.
If she wakes up in the middle of the night in pain, there is no one to care for her. This is a minimum life care plan.
The economist has stated that if we invest the funds now, it will be pay for the minimum humane level of care at the end of her statutorily expected life.
Her biggest worry is what if she lives beyond the age of 81?
What happens if she lives beyond the ‘statutory life expectancy’.
What does she do for medical treatment if she lives longer?
You, as the jury, can fix that. You can’t take away the pain, but you can make it so that she doesn’t have to worry about her doctor’s bills being paid.
You also can help her by providing higher than the minimum humane level of care for the safety and comfort. ...
Future Cost of Care and Current Needs
I have written extensively in the past about inappropriate discharge planning from the hospital. Whether the third party reimbursement is based on cost plus (CP) or diagnostic related groupings (DRG), all hospitals have a financial incentive to discharge their patients as early as possible. With the former type, all of the profit is made during the first three days of any hospitalization, so faster turnover leads to a higher bottom line. Likewise, with the DRGs there is a flat rate for an average length of stay for a particular diagnosis so the earlier discharges allows the hospital to keep more of the money. Therefore, discharge planners have the imperative to immediately push the patient out through the front door once the primary care physician declares that the patient no longer needs acute hospital care. This often leads to the hospital dumping your client into an environment that is ill equipped to deal with the catastrophic disability and will fail to prevent the common complications that cause further deterioration and death. When such negligence occurs there is a clear hospital liability. However, it behooves the attorney to protect the disabled client and prevent such complications by hiring a nurse case manager to evaluate the clients needs immediately after arriving from the hospital and present a life care plan. Aside from the humanitarian considerations, a 43 year old otherwise healthy paraplegic male with some upper body weakness (injury at T-6) will incur approximately six million current value dollars in custodial, skilled nursing and medical costs over a life expectancy of 25 years.
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