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CallAmir.com · Maryland Personal Injury · Article 10

Future Medical Expenses — How They Get Proved

Why Tomorrow’s Care Has to Be Proven Today — and What Happens If It Isn’t

When you are hurt badly enough, the costs do not stop on the day your case settles. Some injuries need care for years — another surgery, more physical therapy, injections, medication, equipment, follow-up scans. Maryland law lets you recover the cost of that future care. But there is a catch that surprises almost everyone: the future is not assumed. It has to be proven. A jury will not award a single dollar for care you might need someday unless someone qualified stands up and shows, with real evidence, that you will need it and what it will cost.

This is one of the most valuable parts of a serious injury case, and one of the easiest to lose. Understanding how future medical expenses are actually proved is how you keep years of needed care from going unpaid.

Future Care Is Real Money — and It Is Economic Damage

Future medical expenses are economic damages. That means they are concrete, out-of-pocket costs — the same category as your past medical bills and your lost wages. They sit on the opposite side of the ledger from non-economic damages like pain and suffering, which measure the human toll rather than the dollars-and-cents cost.

That distinction carries real weight in Maryland. The state caps non-economic damages — the figure for pain and suffering is limited by law. It does not cap economic damages. The cost of your future surgeries, your future therapy, your future medication is not subject to that ceiling. So when an injury will require care for the rest of your life, the future-medical figure can become the single largest piece of the entire case — and it is uncapped.

★ Future medicals are not capped Maryland’s cap on damages limits pain and suffering, not the cost of your care. Future medical expenses are economic damages, and economic damages are not capped. In a catastrophic case, this is often the largest — and most fiercely contested — number on the table.

The Standard: Reasonable Probability, Not Possibility

Here is the rule that governs everything else. Maryland does not let a jury guess about the future. Future medical expenses must be proven to a reasonable probability — meaning more likely than not. Not “might.” Not “could.” Not “is possible.” The evidence has to show that the future care is reasonably certain to be needed.

The difference is not word games; it is the whole case. A doctor who says “she may need surgery down the road” has handed the defense a gift, because a possibility is not recoverable. A doctor who says “to a reasonable degree of medical probability, she will need this surgery” has given the jury something it is allowed to award on. The same future, described two ways, is worth everything or nothing depending on which standard the testimony meets.

The future does not prove itself. In a Maryland courtroom, care you have not yet received is worth nothing until a qualified expert shows it is reasonably certain to be needed.

Who Proves It — and Why You Cannot Do It Alone

You cannot prove future medical care by yourself. Your honest belief that the pain will last, however true, is not enough to support an award. Future medical expenses almost always require expert medical testimony — a treating physician or a retained medical expert who can explain, in terms the jury can rely on, that the injury is permanent or long-lasting, what specific care it will require, how often, and over what span of time.

The treating doctor — the one who has actually managed your recovery — is often the most persuasive voice in the room, because the opinion is grounded in real, documented treatment rather than a single examination arranged for the lawsuit. That is one more reason the care you receive in the months after an injury matters so much: it is the raw material your future-medical claim is built from.

The Life Care Plan — for the Most Serious Cases

For catastrophic injuries — spinal cord damage, traumatic brain injury, amputation, severe burns — a single doctor’s estimate cannot capture a lifetime of need. These cases use a life care plan: a detailed, itemized projection, usually prepared by a life care planner working alongside the treating physicians, that lists every category of future care and its cost, year by year, across the person’s life expectancy.

A life care plan is the difference between “he will need ongoing therapy” and a document that shows exactly what care, how often, and at what cost, for the next forty years. It turns a vague future into a number a jury can actually award and a number the defense has to confront line by line.

★ The life care plan For lifelong injuries, a life care plan converts a lifetime of need into an itemized, year-by-year projection of cost. It is built by specialists with the treating doctors, and in the most serious cases it is the backbone of the entire economic claim.

Reducing It to Present Value

There is one more step that catches people off guard. When a jury awards money for care you will not receive until years from now, Maryland law generally requires that future amount to be reduced to present value. The logic is that a dollar paid to you today, invested sensibly, is worth more than a dollar paid twenty years from now.

An economist usually performs this calculation and explains it to the jury. It does not mean your future care is worth less than it costs. It means the lump sum is adjusted so that, invested with reasonable care, it can actually pay for each treatment as it comes due over the years ahead. Done well, present-value testimony protects the award; done sloppily, or left to the other side, it becomes a tool the defense uses to shrink the number.

Why Settling Too Early Is So Dangerous

A settlement is final. When you sign a release, you give up the right to come back for more — even if your condition worsens, even if you later need a surgery no one predicted. You cannot reopen it. There is no second bite.

⚠ Once you settle, the future is closed Settling before your medical picture is clear is one of the costliest mistakes an injured person can make. If your doctors cannot yet say what your future will require — a point often called maximum medical improvement — you may be signing away care you have not yet learned you will need. A closed case cannot be reopened when the next surgery arrives.

How the Record Wins or Loses It

A claim for future care is only as believable as the treatment behind it. If you stop treating, skip the follow-ups, or let months pass with no care, the defense will argue the simplest possible story: you got better. A record that goes silent makes it very hard for any expert to credibly project years of future need, because the proof of the present is what makes the future believable.

⚠ A quiet record kills a future claim Every gap in treatment is an argument the defense will make for you — that you must have recovered. Follow the care your doctors prescribe and keep the record continuous. The future-medical claim stands on the treatment record beneath it.

And remember the rule that sits over every Maryland injury case: contributory negligence — the state’s harsh 1% rule. Even uncapped future-medical damages, every dollar of them, can be wiped out entirely if the defense convinces a jury you were even slightly at fault for the accident. The size of the future-care number does not protect it. Proving you were not at fault is what protects it.

The Bigger Picture

Future medical expenses can be the most important number in a serious case, and because they are uncapped, they are worth fighting for. But the law gives nothing for the future on faith. It has to be proven — to a reasonable probability, through qualified experts, grounded in a consistent treatment record, and reduced to present value. Build it carefully and it holds. Skip the steps — settle early, let treatment lapse, lean on “maybe” instead of “more likely than not” — and years of needed care can simply disappear from your recovery. The future is recoverable. It is just never automatic.

This article is for general educational purposes only. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Maryland law changes, and every case turns on its own facts. If you or someone you love has been injured, speak with a Maryland personal injury attorney about your specific situation before making any decisions.

If you have been injured in Maryland, do not speak to the defendant's insurance company, their adjuster or attorney, it may jeopardize your case. Contact The Guerami Law Firm, LLC through CallAmir.com for a confidential consultation with Amir Guerami and his team.