GUIDELINES
REFINDABLE AND REIMBURSABLE COSTS OF REHABILITATION.
PRELIMINARY GUIDELINES FOR FORENSIC DOCTORS, LAWYERS AND INSURANCE ADJUSTERS 

Minerva Medicolegale 2012 June;132(2):73-84

Copyright © 2012 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: Italian

Allowable trauma rehabilitation expenses during the interim period: medicolegal considerations

Messina R.

Primario Emerito di Medicina Legale, Azienda Sanitaria di Alessandria, Alessandria, Italia

Following a review of the biological, chronobiological and interpretive aspects of the processes initiated by trauma and their remediation in relation to the efficacy of treatments administered during the post-trauma phases, this article reports on the most recent physiatric and rehabilitation guidelines and an overview of various health care practices and relevant medicolegal issues. This is followed by an analysis of medicolegal evaluation of the interim period in relation to the problem of limiting its duration and to its staging within the perspective of the medicolegal definition of “illness”. Finally, elements in the methodology and evaluation of allowable health expenses are discussed: justified treatments; the difference between “temporary medical treatments” and “future medical treatments”; “medical treatments at some future date”; the particularities of expense invoices; entities authorized to submit reimbursement claims; allowable expenses; and undocumented expenses.