Suffering a serious injury can put a lot on your plate all at once, making it difficult to think clearly about your circumstances and how to move forward in a way that allows you to continue living your life and meeting your needs as much as possible. Your first thoughts may not be about the urgency of filing a personal injury claim, or about the steps you need to take from the moment you’re injured in order to successfully file your claim, but you must start thinking about these types of details as early as possible to avoid missing out on the money you deserve.

Making sure that you’ve followed the appropriate filing process as closely as possible is crucial for making sure your claim isn’t denied and that you’re compensated for your pain and suffering in a timely manner. If you miss an important detail or fail to address a necessary part of your claim promptly, it could cause enough of an issue that your claim is outright denied, preventing you from being compensated.

Properly filing your claim involves a few critical steps, with some of these being particularly high-priority elements of your case. An obvious one is to get adequate medical care as soon as you can after you’ve received your injury; ideally, you should get this care immediately. There are also important deadlines you’ll need to adhere to while filing your claim. Additionally, to best understand your circumstances and how you should approach the rest of the filing process, it’s best to consult an attorney to get detailed expertise that’s personalized to your situation.

In this blog post, we’ll provide an in-depth look at each of these elements of filing a claim, as explained by a Wilmington, NC personal injury attorney.

Get medical care as soon as possible after the injury

If for no other reason than to prevent further harm to yourself, it’s crucial to receive care from a medical professional as quickly as you can after you’ve received a serious injury. When you plan to file a personal injury lawsuit, though, there are additional important reasons to take this step; even if you don’t feel badly injured at the time, the injury could become worse later, but if you failed to seek prompt treatment, this inaction could be used against you as evidence that the injury wasn’t as serious as you claim.

You should also discuss the injury with the doctor and make sure they’re aware of the circumstances under which you received it. This could factor into your case later if the doctor that treated you is brought into court to provide testimony, or if an investigator working on behalf of the party you’re seeking compensation from approaches your medical caregiver to discuss the matter.

Pay close attention to filing deadlines

You don’t have an unlimited amount of time to file your personal injury claim. North Carolina’s statute of limitations prevents you from bringing a personal injury claim more than three years after the inciting incident occurred. While this may seem to give you plenty of time to take action, you should treat this element of your claim with a similar level of urgency as your medical treatment; any delays in filing a claim may be used against you in a similar way.

Schedule a consultation with an attorney before you file

Before filing a personal injury claim, talk to an attorney as part of the process of gathering as much information as possible and approaching the situation from an informed place. A lawyer can help you better understand your circumstances within the context of the federal, state, and local laws most relevant to your case, and ideally, they can help you reach a settlement that works for you without having to endure additional expenses through a drawn-out trial.

Need a Wilmington, NC personal injury attorney with the experience to help you file your claim properly and navigate issues in your case as they arise? Rodzik Law Group can help. Call now for more information or to schedule a consultation.