Long-Term Care Costs for Birth Injuries

When you or your child suffers a birth injury, the impact on their life and yours can be catastrophic. Not only are significant medical conditions – such as physical and developmental disabilities – often a result, but the emotional consequences of birth injuries can also affect the whole family. Furthermore, the financial burden of supporting a child with a birth injury—or even living as an adult with an injury sustained during childbirth—can be incredibly difficult for many families. Whether it’s the extensive medical care and monitoring, ongoing therapies and caretaking, specialized equipment, and/or possible home modifications people living with birth injuries might require, the costs can be substantial. Recognizing the scope of these costs is critical to their wellbeing and yours as you prepare for their future and help ensure their care and support.

If your child shows signs of a birth injury that you believe resulted from medical negligence, you may be entitled to compensation for immediate and future medical expenses, emotional pain and suffering, and other damages your child and family suffer as a result. By taking legal action with support from an experienced and dedicated injury attorney, you can obtain the maximum coverage possible to meet your child’s complex needs now and in the long term.

Immediate Costs of Birth Injuries

The immediate medical costs after a birth injury tend to be related to necessary medical intervention. Extended hospital stays, often in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), are common to facilitate close monitoring and specialized attention, and can cost thousands of dollars per day depending on the level of care required. During or following hospitalization, children suffering from birth injuries may require surgeries or other procedures to address specific conditions or injuries, with each surgery and its accompanying pre-and post-operative care costing tens of thousands of dollars or more.

An initial period of rehabilitation may also be necessary to help overcome early physical and developmental challenges; the earlier physical, speech, and even occupational therapies begin, the better the potential for recovery and development. Sometimes these therapies can cost hundreds of dollars per session with multiple weekly sessions prescribed.

Beyond these early direct medical interventions, immediate costs often involve expensive diagnostic tests such as CT scans, MRIs, and even genetic testing, which can help families and doctors understand the full extent of the birth injury and plan the appropriate treatments. With each diagnostic test ranging anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars on top of ongoing essential care, it’s easy to see how rapidly costs might accumulate after a birth injury. The financial burden can be overwhelming. Without adequate insurance coverage or compensation from a birth injury settlement, even affluent families could quickly find themselves in dire straits.

Long-Term Care Costs for Birth Injuries

Ongoing Medical Treatment Costs

Long-term medical treatments for birth injury patients often involve frequent ongoing care such as regular doctor visits and lab tests for monitoring, periodic surgeries to facilitate evolving health needs, and prescription medications to manage conditions on a daily basis.

Consider how these types of critical healthcare services and treatments can continuously impose birth injury long-term costs:

• Routine check-ups, often with specialists like neurologists, orthopedic surgeons or developmental pediatricians, may be necessary for targeted care for various aspects of a condition. On its own each appointment could cost hundreds of dollars per visit, and that’s before accompanying lab tests are taken into account. These expenses might also increase in frequency over time as conditions evolve and adjustments to treatment plans remain essential.
• Many birth injuries may necessitate multiple surgeries throughout the years to maintain, correct, or modify treatments in a growing or changing body. For example, a child suffering from cerebral palsy might need periodic orthopedic surgeries to alleviate muscle tightness or correct bone deformities, with each procedure costing tens of thousands of dollars. These surgical interventions, combined with hospital stays and pre-and post-operative care, quickly compound the financial burden.
• Medication management is essential for many conditions related to birth injuries. For example, children might require medication to control seizures, manage muscle spasticity, or address pain. The cost for each prescription medication could total hundreds or even thousands of dollars per month depending on availability, dosage, and how it is administered (orally, as an infusion, as an injection, etc.).

When determining how much compensation is reasonable for a birth injury, these ongoing costs should be taken into account as part of responsible and comprehensive financial planning for lifelong medical care needs.

Rehabilitation and Therapy Costs

Rehabilitation and therapy represent a significant portion of long-term care costs associated with birth injuries. Aimed at developing and enhancing physical, cognitive, and communicative abilities, these interventions provide fundamental support to those living with birth injuries:

• Physical therapy (PT): Physical therapy sessions help improve motor skills, develop muscle strength, and gain coordination. For children dealing with birth injury-related conditions like cerebral palsy, multiple weekly sessions of PT are often prescribed. These can cost hundreds of dollars every week, leading to thousands of dollars in expenses annually.
• Occupational therapy (OT): Occupational therapy often plays a major role in helping people living with birth injuries develop the skills needed for daily activities and independence. In OT, patients work on fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and adaptive techniques for self-care tasks such as dressing and feeding oneself. OT can be especially critical for people who suffer long-term disabilities as a result of a birth injury. The annual costs rival those of PT.
• Speech therapy: Certain birth injuries might affect a child’s communication abilities such as brain injuries or facial paralysis injuries. Regular sessions with a speech therapist might be prescribed to work on language development, articulation and other communication skills, or even to address early feeding issues in infants and toddlers.

Overall, therapeutic interventions can prove extremely useful — even vital — to improving quality of life and functional abilities for children with birth injuries. However, given that typical coverage under most medical insurance policies is limited, these therapies may be cost prohibitive for the average family. Adequate birth injury compensation calculates these expenses to ensure that they are covered.

Home Modifications and Accessibility Costs

Home modifications and accessibility needs are another major source of financial burden for children and families living with a birth injury. Consider some of the most common adaptive tools and technologies that help people living with birth injury disabilities to navigate and function safely and comfortably within their living environment, as well as the costs associated:

• Wheelchair ramp installation: $1,000 to $5,000 per ramp
• Stair chair lifts installed: $2,200 to $13,000 depending on the type of lift, type of staircase, and other factors
• Doorways and hallway widening to accommodate wheelchairs and other mobility aids: $800 to $2,500 per doorway or hallway
• Adjustable bed to facilitate easier transfer and positioning: $1,500 to $5,000
• Ergonomic chairs and other customized seating solutions: $500 to $2,000
• Voice-activated systems, communication devices, and other adaptive technologies: $1,000 to $10,000 depending on the nature and sophistication of the equipment

Many homes may require more extensive renovations to accommodate a family member’s disability after a birth injury, particularly in bathroom and kitchen areas. These modifications might include installing roll-in showers and accessible sinks, lowering countertops, and installing safety features like grab bars, non-slip flooring, and adaptive hardware. Depending on the extent of the renovations needed, costs might vary anywhere from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars.

Legal Compensation for Birth Injuries

Birth Injury Lawsuit Settlements

Given the potential immediate and long-term costs associated with birth injuries, it’s no surprise that this most serious type of medical negligence could easily cost a family well upwards of $1 million over a lifetime. Most families simply do not have those resources at their disposal.

Pursuing a birth injury lawsuit may seem complex and overwhelming. But with support from a skilled medical malpractice attorney who has ample experience obtaining birth injury settlement and jury awards for victims of childbirth negligence, you can feel confident that your case is in good hands and that you’ll be able to provide the comprehensive care your child is entitled to.

Factors Affecting Birth Injury Compensation

As you begin the process of filing a claim for birth injury compensation, it’s important to understand the goals and potential outcomes of your case and the factors that influence those outcomes. First, what types of financial compensation are available? In fact, compensation may entail both economic and non-economic damages:

• Economic damages are the real, measurable, monetary expenses of your birth injury; those that can be supported with medical bills, hospital records, receipts, credible estimates, and other financial documentation.
• Non-economic damages consider the unquantifiable losses such as emotional anguish, pain and suffering, and diminished quality of life.

Several factors affect the amount of compensation for which you might be eligible, including:

• Severity of the birth injury
• Medical, therapeutic, and accommodative expenses thus far
• Estimated long-term medical, therapeutic, and accommodative expenses
• Parents’ lost wages due to missed work
• Overall impact of the birth injury on quality of life

While your malpractice lawyer can help prepare you for possible outcomes of your case and advise you on actions to take, in general you’ll either agree on a settlement amount for your claim or proceed to trial. Keep in mind that over 96% of medical negligence cases settle, and that most plaintiffs prefer to reach a settlement rather than jeopardize their compensation in a trial.

Having a legal team with expertise in the realm of birth injuries, can help raise the value of the potential recovery of compensation for your losses. The Beasley Firm has built a reputation in-part on record breaking jury awards for injured children. Consider several of our most significant jury birth injury lawsuit cases:

• A $37 million recovery in Fallon v. Snyder, a medical neglect case in which our attorneys represented the family of a premature infant who suffered a life-altering brain injury
• A $55 million verdict in Gault v. Norwood, the second-largest medical malpractice verdict in history in which a renowned heart surgeon performed an unauthorized surgical procedure on a healthy baby that resulted in irreversible brain damage
• A $100 million verdict in Vlazny vs. Cavrroci MD et al, one of the largest medical malpractice jury awards in Pennsylvania history, in which our attorneys represented the family of a premature infant who suffered severe brain damage and amputation due to lack of medical knowledge by the doctor who performed surgery on the baby

The Beasley Firm Can Help with Birth Injury Lawsuits

If the mounting long-term costs of a birth injury become too extensive to manage, it may be time to explore your legal options for compensation. The Beasley Firm has helped secure hundreds of millions of dollars for Pennsylvania plaintiffs filing medical malpractice cases and over $2 billion total in injury settlements on behalf of our clients.

You don’t have to go through this difficult time alone. Our skilled legal team is here to provide you with the support and guidance you need. Our legal team includes two doctors who understand the complexities of maternal and neonatal care.  Call The Beasley Firm today at (215) 866-2424 or contact us online for a free case evaluation.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much compensation can you get for a birth injury?

For a birth injury that resulted from medical negligence, you can get the entirety of your injury-related costs covered (both those already incurred and those you will incur in the future). Additionally, you are entitled to compensation for the less quantifiable, non-economic damages you suffer such as emotional distress, pain and suffering.

What factors influence birth injury lawsuit settlements?

Many factors affect the total value of a settlement including the nature and severity of the birth injury, the measurable costs and economic losses to-date, the calculated estimate of future costs and economic losses, and the overall strength of the evidence in your case.

How do you file a birth injury lawsuit?

To explore your options for filing a birth injury lawsuit, reach out to a trustworthy attorney who can evaluate the details of your potential case and advise you on how to move forward.

What is the average settlement for a birth injury lawsuit?

The average settlement amount nationwide for birth injury settlements is just over $1 million. The Beasley Firm in Pennsylvania has recovered multiple multi-million dollar verdicts and settlements for birth injury clients.