Life Care Plan Cost and Fee Structure
The cost of a life care plan engagement is the planner's time across six billed phases, with cost research usually the largest. Two drivers dominate: the number of treating providers whose records have to be read and reconciled, and the cost research needed to price every item for the region where care will be delivered. Counsel controls which engagement is retained, a new plan, a review of an opposing plan or a narrower projection, and how complete the record is at the outset.
Typical range
Life care plan fees reflect the complexity of the injury, the breadth of future care needs, and the number of treating providers and records involved. KWVRS provides a written fee schedule and a cost estimate before work begins.
What drives cost
- Severity and complexity of the injury or chronic condition
- Number of treating physicians and the volume of medical records
- Whether a clinical interview, home assessment, or physician collaboration is required
- Scope of future care projected, including medical, surgical, therapy, equipment, home modification, and attendant care
- Cost research required to price each item by geographic region
- Deposition and trial testimony, including preparation and travel time
Billing structure
Life care planning is billed at an hourly rate for records review, clinical interview, provider collaboration, cost research, plan preparation, and testimony. A retainer is established at the outset and applied against time incurred. The current rate schedule and retainer terms are provided on request and confirmed in a written engagement agreement.
Questions about life care plan cost and fee structure
What drives the cost of a life care plan engagement?
The breadth of the injury comes first, because every care category the condition touches, from specialty follow-up and therapies to equipment, home modification and attendant care, is a set of lines to research and price. The number of treating providers and the volume of their records comes next, then the cost research itself, since each item is priced for the region where the care will be delivered.
How is a life care plan engagement billed, and what is the retainer applied against?
Hourly, and the engagement retained sets which of the phases are billed. A new plan bills every phase from records review to testimony; a review of an opposing plan bills the line-by-line reading of the served plan and the written critique; a future medical cost projection bills only the research its medical categories need. The retainer is drawn first against the records review and chronology that open each engagement.
Does KWVRS provide a cost estimate before a life care plan engagement begins?
Yes, once the engagement type is known, because a new plan, a review and a projection are scoped differently. Send the complete medical record and imaging with treating provider information and the current clinical status, any plan, cost projection or medical opinion already served, and say whether an interview, a home visit or physician collaboration is expected, with the disclosure deadline the plan must meet.
Does deposition or trial testimony add to the cost of a life care plan engagement?
Yes, on the terms of the testimony engagement: hourly preparation, then the deposition or trial rate. What is specific to a life care plan is the exhibit work, since the demonstratives show the plan structure and the care timeline, and the planner is examined line by line on the clinical basis, frequency, duration and cost source of the items, so preparation hours follow the size of the plan.
Is a review of an opposing life care plan priced separately?
Yes. A line-by-line review of a plan the other side has served is its own engagement, scoped when that plan is disclosed, because its size follows the plan: each medical item is checked for physician support, each frequency and duration for a basis in the literature and the treating recommendations, each cost source for geographic match, and the arithmetic is re-run from the first line.
Does a home assessment or physician collaboration change the cost of a life care plan?
Both add hours and are scoped in advance. A home assessment adds a visit and travel, and documents the environment that home modification and equipment lines depend on. Physician collaboration means coordinating with the treating providers on the items within the scope of medical practice, which need physician support; it is billed as its own phase, and the roster includes a board-certified physician who holds the life care planning credential.
Related reading
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