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Accident victim support, rehabilitation report, mobility equipment and claiming expenses, your solicitor should commission an occupational therapist to prepare a rehabilitation report after your accident
Any injury which involves a catastrophic life changing injury, your solicitor should eventually commission an Occupational Therapist to prepare a Rehabilitation Report.
Rehabilitation is an important part of your road to recovery. It will only entail as much as you can reasonably do. If it has any positive effect on your ability to cope with life after your accident then it is worthy of your consideration.
Equipment is a very generic term. What we mean by that is any "thing" that you use. It may be a major item such as a car and the adaptations needed for you to use it or gym equipment to enable you to keep fit because your mobility has now been compromised to the very small for example a Ph neutral soap and shampoo because your skin is being irritated because it has been covered with a medical piece of equipment eg a bag for a colostomy or a prosthetic sleeve holding a prosthetic leg to your body. There is a huge variation here.
It is important to point out to you that as far as equipment is concerned you are the expert. You might not as yet have the experience to justify that tag but I assure you it will not be long in coming. Someone living with a disability will find all manner of pieces of equipment that are useful but the learned expert may not readily agree with you that the piece of equipment is needed. To evidence the necessity for the use of the insurance company's money make a note of the reason why it was bought and to what use it is put. It is hard to dispute a need when it is in daily use or vital in some other way. You can make a small note on the receipt itself or prepare a list of equipment and note the list with your justifications.
Mentor Experiences has prepared an Equipment Spread sheet which can be purchased. Using this equipment spread sheet from the beginning of your rehabilitation can save you a lot of time later on. When schedules are done you may find that they are redone, restructured or redrafted. Although you do not draft these schedules the fact that they are in electronic form will greatly assist the checking. The reason for this is that YOU can also redraft the schedules when the paper copies arrive in the post and then see what has been left out. It is at that stage you may have to remind with vigour your own legal team as to why some items have been left out. Having the story of the necessity for purchase on each receipt will then help you recall why the item was bought.
Your own legal team may attempt to remove many of your purchases from the final tally, resist this as far as you are able. The reason your legal team will be doing this is because they want you to appear reasonable to the judge. The reason they may use to dissuade you from claiming the item may be that it is too remote from the accident or too frivolous eg the purchase of a special soap which is non scented and been bought because scented soap irritates your skin as mentioned above. The fact that over your lifetime the purchase of this item will amount to hundreds or even thousands of pounds will not sway them from their opinion. Your counter argument there, and lawyers love the art of arguing and debating, and there will always be counter arguments, is that you would have had to buy soap anyway. Be ready to ensure that your argument has an answer to this eg I also buy pre accident normal soap for my family so the cost is additional to the cost of this item. The will of course need to see the evidence, which you will have in the form of receipts. Apply this principle wherever you see a similar need.
So what are you likely to need by way of
equipment for your rehabilitation.
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