How Do Future Medical Costs Affect a Maryland Spinal Cord Injury Claim?

Lifetime Medical Care Can Reshape the Value of a Spinal Cord Injury Claim

A spinal cord injury can change someone's life in an instant. Depending on the severity of the injury, a person may need surgery, rehabilitation, mobility equipment, medication, attendant care, home modifications, and recurring medical treatment for decades.

Those future expenses can become a major part of a Maryland personal injury claim. The challenge is that a settlement or verdict has to account for care that hasn't happened yet.

The National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center estimates that about 18,000 new traumatic spinal cord injuries occur in the United States each year. Vehicular incidents account for about 37.5% of traumatic spinal cord injuries recorded since 2015.

The Law Offices of Stuart L. Plotnick, LLC is now managed by Finnegan Cannon, which handles current inquiries and cases through the practice. Our Rockville personal injury team looks beyond the bills that have already arrived when evaluating catastrophic injury claims. A serious spinal cord injury may create medical and support needs that continue long after the legal case ends.

Maryland Law Treats Future Medical Expenses as a Separate Category of Damages

Future medical costs aren't simply folded into a general estimate of what an injury claim is worth.

Under Maryland Courts and Judicial Proceedings § 11-109, medical expenses are considered economic damages. In a personal injury verdict, the amount awarded for future medical expenses must be identified separately from past medical expenses, past and future lost earnings, noneconomic damages, and other damages.

That distinction can be especially important after a spinal cord injury. Maryland's limitation on noneconomic damages applies to losses such as pain, suffering, inconvenience, physical impairment, and disfigurement. Future medical expenses fall on the economic side of the claim instead.

The difference between economic and noneconomic damages matters when a catastrophic injury creates millions of dollars in potential lifetime expenses.

The Cost of Spinal Cord Injury Care Varies Dramatically by Severity

There isn't one standard dollar amount for future spinal cord injury care. A person who remains able to walk but has lasting neurological limitations may face very different costs from someone who develops paraplegia or high-level tetraplegia.

National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center data illustrates how large that difference can become. The following figures are national estimates stated in 2024 dollars and include direct health care and living expenses. They don't include indirect losses such as wages, benefits, or lost productivity.

Injury Severity	First-Year Costs	Each Later Year	Estimated Lifetime Cost if Injured at 25
High Tetraplegia C1-C4	$1,410,163	$244,879	$6,256,937
Low Tetraplegia C5-C8	$1,018,966	$150,222	$4,571,708
Paraplegia	$687,262	$91,042	$3,059,615
Motor Functional at Any Level	$460,224	$55,900	$2,090,344

These figures aren't a settlement calculator. They show why a catastrophic injury claim can't be evaluated simply by adding up the medical bills that exist today.

Someone injured at 25 may need care for decades. The costs can include recurring expenses that don't appear on the first hospital statement and may not become obvious until rehabilitation is well underway.

Future Care Can Extend Far Beyond Doctor Visits

A spinal cord injury can create medical and support needs across nearly every part of daily life. Depending on the person's prognosis, future damages may account for:

• Rehabilitation And Therapy – Physical therapy, occupational therapy, rehabilitation programs, and other services intended to preserve or improve function.
• Mobility And Medical Equipment – Wheelchairs, cushions, lifts, braces, hospital beds, and replacement equipment that may be needed repeatedly over a lifetime.
• Home And Vehicle Modifications – Ramps, accessible bathrooms, widened doorways, lifts, and adapted vehicles may become necessary for independence.
• Medication And Medical Supplies – Prescription drugs, catheters, wound-care products, and other supplies can create recurring expenses.
• Attendant And Home Care – Some people need assistance with transfers, bathing, dressing, transportation, household tasks, or other daily activities.
• Future Procedures And Hospitalizations – Complications can require additional treatment, surgery, hospitalization, or specialist care years after the original injury.

Future Medical Costs Need Evidence, Not Just an Estimate

A lawyer can't simply choose a large number for future treatment and add it to a demand.

Maryland's appellate courts have specifically addressed this issue. In Farley v. Allstate Insurance Company, Maryland's highest court explained that expert testimony about future treatment must be based on reasonable probability or reasonable certainty rather than mere possibilities.

In that case, testimony that the injured person "may" need injections and physical therapy wasn't definite enough to support an award for future medical treatment.

That distinction becomes critical in a spinal cord injury claim.

Depending on the case, evidence supporting future costs may come from:

• Treating Physicians – Doctors can explain the prognosis, expected complications, future procedures, medication needs, and anticipated treatment.
• Rehabilitation Specialists – These providers can document therapy, mobility, functional limitations, and continuing rehabilitation needs.
• Life Care Planners – In appropriate catastrophic injury cases, a life care plan can organize anticipated medical care, equipment, assistance, and related costs over the injured person's expected lifetime.
• Medical Records And Bills – Existing treatment helps establish the nature and severity of the injury and provides a foundation for projecting future needs.
• Economic Evidence – Experts may be needed to evaluate the long-term financial cost of care or lost earning capacity.

The stronger the medical foundation, the harder it becomes for an insurer to dismiss future treatment as speculation.

Settling Before the Long-Term Prognosis Is Clear Can Create a Serious Problem

Generally, a personal injury settlement is intended to resolve the claim completely. Once the injured person signs the release and accepts the settlement, they ordinarily can't return to the insurer months or years later because surgery, equipment, attendant care, or another expense turned out to cost more than expected.

That's why understanding the prognosis before resolving a catastrophic injury claim matters.

That doesn't necessarily mean waiting until someone has completely recovered or reached a particular milestone. Some spinal cord injuries are permanent, and treatment can continue indefinitely. The goal is to obtain enough reliable medical information to reasonably understand what the future is likely to involve.

Legal deadlines also continue running while treatment is underway. Maryland generally imposes a three-year filing deadline on ordinary personal injury actions, subject to exceptions and other rules. Our blog on Maryland personal injury filing deadlines after a car accident explains why waiting for treatment to end shouldn't mean ignoring the legal calendar.

Insurance Companies Can Challenge Both the Need for Care and Its Cost

An insurer may accept that someone suffered a spinal cord injury while still arguing about what happens next.

The company may claim that a proposed surgery isn't reasonably necessary, that a wheelchair or home modification is too expensive, that attendant care won't be needed as often as projected, or that a future complication is too uncertain to include in the claim.

Insurers may also try to connect part of the person's future condition to an older injury or preexisting medical problem rather than the accident.

Those disputes are one reason medical documentation and expert analysis matter so much. The issue isn't simply what care would make life easier. The claim needs evidence connecting the anticipated care and expense to the spinal cord injury caused by the defendant's negligence.

Medical Costs Are Important, but They Don't Determine Claim Value by Themselves

Future medical expenses can represent a substantial part of a spinal cord injury claim, but they're only one piece of the valuation.

Other issues can include:

• Past Medical Expenses – Emergency care, hospitalization, surgery, rehabilitation, and treatment already received.
• Lost Income And Earning Capacity – A permanent disability may affect whether someone can return to the same career or work at all.
• Pain And Suffering – Maryland law separately recognizes the physical and emotional consequences of a serious injury.
• Loss Of Independence – The inability to drive, live independently, participate in activities, or perform ordinary daily tasks can dramatically affect someone's life.
• Liability – Maryland's contributory negligence rule can bar recovery when an injured person is found to have contributed to causing the accident.
• Available Insurance And Other Sources Of Recovery – Identifying every responsible party and applicable policy can become particularly important when losses are substantial.

Maryland's contributory negligence rule makes the liability side of the case especially important. A catastrophic medical prognosis doesn't eliminate the need to prove that someone else was legally responsible for causing the injury.

Our Rockville Personal Injury Team Looks at the Cost of the Injury Over a Lifetime

A spinal cord injury claim shouldn't be valued from a stack of today's medical bills alone. The real financial impact may include decades of care, equipment, rehabilitation, lost earning capacity, and assistance with daily life.

The Law Offices of Stuart L. Plotnick, LLC is now managed by Finnegan Cannon, which handles current inquiries and cases through the practice. Our Rockville personal injury team can work with the medical and financial evidence needed to document both the costs that have already been incurred and the losses that are reasonably expected in the future.

You don't have to determine the lifetime cost of a catastrophic injury on your own. Contact our legal team for a free case evaluation. We can review what happened, the medical evidence, and the long-term effect of the injury and explain what should be considered before your claim is resolved.