Patients who have been injured in a car accident or other incident face many emotional, physical, and financial challenges.  

Often, the financial challenges add to the emotional toll and can hinder their physical recovery.  

According to a 2021 study in the Journal of Injury Prevention, the median cost of medical bills in the first year after a non-fatal injury is $6,658, but can climb to as high as $80,172. 

Even the low end of that range, $1,698, is still out of reach for an estimated 28% of Americans who have less than $1,000 in savings, according to a Forbes Advisor survey. That means that over a quarter of the country is just one minor injury away from being broke.  

Even relatively minor injuries come at a high cost, when treatment over a 12-month period is factored in. For example:  

• Cuts or piercing of the skin typically cost $3,199. 
• Falls are $7,206.  
• Injury caused by touching a hot object or substance is $6,200.  

When you’re dealing with the kinds of injuries incurred in a car accident, medical expenses go up considerably.  

• Broken limbs are a common injury in car crash. A broken leg can be especially costly in medical treatment. The surgery to fix and re-align a broken leg runs between $15,000 and $40,000 without insurance.  
• A broken arm is less expenses but still comes in at a hefty $10,000 for just the surgery alone.  
• Injuries to the back, particularly the spinal cord, can limit mobility, cause pain, and are also very expensive to treat.  
• Back injuries are also common in car accidents. Surgery and treatment for a back injury can easily top six figures, even in cases where there was no damage to the spine that resulted in paralysis.  

In theory, insurance should cover the cost of someone’s medical treatment after an injury. But the reality is there are many ways that a personal injury patient should be saddled with the bill. The driver who hit them and is at fault could be among the 14 percent of Americans who still does not have auto insurance. Even if the driver does have insurance, a personal injury patient with limited financial resources may be up against an insurer who is trying to lowball them on a settlement amount.  

Some personal injury patients may also be filing claims with their own health insurer. But an estimated 25.3 million Americans who can’t afford health insurance will have to cover the bill on their own.  

All this means that those who can least afford it are most likely to be burdened with crippling medical debt due to an injury.  

In fact, even those who are fully insured sometimes cannot escape the weight of medical debt.  

Take the case of Mark Gottlieb, a New Jersey man had four vertebrae in his upper spine and half a dozen teeth smashed when he was hit by another driver in 2019. 

Gottlieb went through injections, chiropractic care and physical therapy – all of which failed to relieve his neck pain. That left only one other treatment option: anterior cervical discectomy and fusion, a type of surgery to replace discs in the spine. The hospital charged $445,995 for the procedure, with his pain management clinic sending an additional bill for $264,444, leading to a total of over $700,000, according to a profile of his case in Kaiser Family Foundation Health News.  

In this case, Gottlieb has both health and auto insurance, including the maximum for personal injury protection for auto policies, which was $250,000. It wasn’t enough: after exhausting his insurance, Gottlieb was still stuck with $89,000 in outstanding medical bills.  

Just imagine how daunting medical expenses can be for someone who doesn’t have health coverage.  

The financial challenges personal injury patients face is compounded by lost work time. The average work time someone loses due to an injury is 11 days. Of course, the impact on ability to work varies considerably by injury. For bites and stings, the average worker lost a day and a half. For motorcycle injuries the impact came out to an average of 44.1 days, according to a separate 2021 study in the Journal of Injury Prevention. 

Missed workdays threaten to set up a vicious cycle for personal injury patients whose finances are already strained. Time off the job means reduced wages, which further inhibits the ability of those patients to cover their medical expenses.  

Then, on the other side, there are personal injury patients who do not get the treatment they need because they can’t afford it. In fact, according to a 2021 study by the U.S. Pain Foundation, three quarters of respondents to a survey revealed that “cost prevented them from accessing one or more treatment options.” 

For personal injury patients, paying for their care should be the last thing they have to worry about. However, for far too many, it becomes one of their biggest burdens. If you’ve been injured through no fault of your own, apply here to get pre-settlement or post-settlement plaintiff cash advance to help you with your life expenses, or funding for your medical needs, or give us a call today at 877-263-4633.