Across Australia, thousands of people are paying for TPD insurance through the hard earned money in their super funds. Many...
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If you have been involved in a road accident, your recovery should be your priority. Sustaining injuries in a road accident can be a traumatic and difficult experience, especially if you’re unable to pay for expensive medical and rehabilitation bills. Irrespective of your financial position, it’s also not fair that you have to foot the bill for recovering from an incident that wasn’t your fault.
The Motor Accident Insurance Act 1994 (QLD) governs the operation of Queensland’s Compulsory Third Party (CTP) insurance scheme, as well as Queensland’s scheme of statutory insurance for uninsured and unidentified vehicles. A stated object of the Act is to promote and encourage, as far as practicable, the rehabilitation of claimants who sustain personal injury because of motor vehicle accidents. Accordingly, the Act imposes obligations on CTP insurer’s pertaining to funding rehabilitation and treatment for claimants in certain circumstances.
In addition to rehabilitation obligations imposed by legislation, the Motor Accident Insurance Commission has developed rehabilitation standards and guidelines for CTP insurers, to help ensure that injured claimants are in receipt of timely reasonable and appropriate rehabilitation. A stated goal of these guidelines is to provide insurers with best-practice industry standards when assisting claimant’s with their rehabilitation journey.
Pursuant to Section 51 of the Motor Accident Insurance Act 1994 (QLD), the CTP insurer may make rehabilitation services available to you on the insurer’s own initiative, or at the request of you or your legal representatives. Once liability has been admitted by a CTP insurer, or the insurer has agreed to fund rehabilitation services without making an admission of liability, stronger rehabilitation obligations apply, with the CTP insurer required to ensure that reasonable and appropriate rehabilitation services are made available to you.
Whether a specific rehabilitation service is ‘reasonable and appropriate’ will depend on a number of factors, such as the nature and extent of your injury and whether the rehabilitation service is recommended by treating doctors or allied health professionals. As such, it is important that you seek medical treatment soon after any motor vehicle accident, so as to ensure that your medical and rehabilitation needs are ascertained and documented.
Once a rehabilitation offer has been made, the CTP insurer may approve direct pre-approved funding of certain ongoing treatment options recommended by your medical providers. Whilst the specific treatment recommended to you will depend on the nature of your injuries, options may include medical consultations, psychological or psychiatric services, return to work programs, medication, or physiotherapy. If you’ve already been funding your own treatment, the CTP insurer may also reimburse you for these amounts, provided that they have been reasonably and appropriately incurred.
Ongoing, pre-approved funding of ongoing treatment options like physiotherapy can take the stress out of your recovery journey, allowing you to focus on getting better.
Navigating the CTP claim process can be daunting, especially when your chief concern is getting better. If you need assistance navigating this process, please reach out to Littles Lawyers today. At Littles, we consider it a privilege to be able to help you at your time of need.
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