Life Care Plan Cost and Fee Structure
The cost of a life care plan engagement depends on the work across its six 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.
Scope and estimate
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
Counsel receives a written fee schedule and an estimate for the requested scope before any work begins, and the engagement agreement sets the fee and its payment terms.
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 do the three kinds of life care plan engagement differ in what they cost?
In the work each includes, and the engagement agreement sets the fee for the engagement retained and its payment terms. A new plan runs from records review to the finished plan, with testimony priced apart; a review of an opposing plan covers the line-by-line reading of the served plan and the written critique; a future medical cost projection covers only the research its medical categories need.
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. Expert testimony is priced on the fee schedule, apart from the plan. 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 follows 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 work 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 scoped with the plan, and the roster includes a board-certified physician who holds the life care planning credential.
Related reading
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