Life care plan costing applied to personal injury litigation: methodology, deliverables, and case-specific considerations.
For a personal injury claim the life care plan supplies the future medical and care items, and the economist's role is the economic translation of those items into a present value that reconciles with the plan. Each item's frequency, duration, and unit cost is carried forward with the medical cost growth appropriate to its category, summed year by year over the applicable life expectancy, and discounted with the rate stated. The result can stand alone or enter an integrated damages report on the same growth, discount, and life expectancy assumptions as the earnings and household services components.
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.
The claim typically consists of past lost earnings from the date of injury to the date of analysis, future lost earnings or reduced earning capacity across the person's expected worklife, lost fringe benefits such as employer retirement contributions and health insurance, the replacement cost of household services the person can no longer perform, and the present value of future medical and care costs when a life care plan or treating recommendations exist. The records that drive the number are tax returns, W-2s and pay stubs, personnel and union files, benefit plan documents, and the medical or work-capacity opinions that define what the person can do after the injury.
We issue the final report and provide deposition and trial testimony, rebuttal of opposing present value opinions, and revaluation when the plan is updated.
Either works, and counsel decides. As a stand-alone valuation the report ties every figure to the plan; as a component of an integrated report it shares assumptions with the earnings and household services analyses so the whole claim reconciles.
The valuation is updated on the same assumptions. Because each valued item ties back to a plan line, a revised plan is revalued item by item and the report shows what changed and by how much.
Request a consultation on Life Care Plan Costing or call (201) 343-0700. Plaintiff and defense counsel.