Reduction of a life care plan's line items to a single present value. The plan's items, frequencies, durations, and unit costs are carried forward with medical cost growth appropriate to each category, then discounted over the applicable life expectancy. Plan authorship stays with the life care planner; our role is the economic translation of the plan into a damages figure that reconciles with the plan and can be examined item by item.
KW Economics prepares life care plan costing for plaintiff and defense counsel nationwide; the method is the same whichever side retains the economist.
Life care plan costing at KW Economics is directed by Christopher Skerritt, M.Ed., MBA, Chief of Economic Services, who is available to testify to it.
The life care plan itself is authored by the affiliated life care planning practice, which sets each item's frequency, duration, and unit cost from the medical record; the economist prices the finished plan to present value and does not alter its contents. Life care plan authorship at the affiliated practice.
How life care plan costing applies to the specific demands of each case type: methodology, deliverables, and what counsel should expect.
Reduce it to a present value. Each item in the plan carries a frequency, a duration, and a current unit cost; the economist projects each item forward with the medical cost growth rate appropriate to its category, sums the stream year by year over the applicable life expectancy, and discounts it to present value with the rate stated. The plan's authorship and its clinical content stay with its author.
A category-specific rate drawn from published medical price indexes, so physician services, hospital care, prescription drugs, equipment, and attendant care each carry the growth history of their own category rather than one rate for the whole plan. The report states each rate and its source and shows the effect of a single blended rate for comparison.
It sets the horizon for every lifetime item. The economist applies the life expectancy the medical evidence supports, whether population tables or a physician's opinion of a reduced expectancy, and where the physicians disagree presents the present value under each so the fact finder can attach the number to the finding it makes.
Yes. When two plans are in the record, the economist values each on the same growth, discount, and life expectancy assumptions and presents the difference item by item, so counsel can see which plan items, rather than which economic assumptions, account for the gap between the two totals.
No state licenses forensic economists. Qualification to testify on life care plan costing is decided case by case on education, method, and testimony history; these pages explain what each credential establishes and what it does not.
Request a consultation on Life Care Plan Costing or call (201) 343-0700. Plaintiff and defense counsel.