Measuring the Value of Medical Services in Personal Injury Suits

Personal injury suits typically include costs for a plaintiff ’s future medical bills. In most cases, plaintiffs’ attorneys use life care planners to estimate their clients’ future medical costs. Life care planners often use the billed charges of one healthcare provider or a small number of providers as the basis for calculating the value of the services they determine the plaintiff needs. However, provider charges are not an appropriate measure of the value of healthcare services. In fact, less than 5 percent of national healthcare payments are made based on provider charges. Instead, the US healthcare system uses the market value of healthcare products and services to establish payment levels. Market value should be used in personal injury cases as well.

In this white paper, Henry Miller, Greg Russo, and JoAnna Younts describe why provider-billed charges may be an inappropriate measure of the value of medical products and services, and how the market value of these services should be measured and applied in personal injury cases.