Life care planners in their own words

How do life care planners determine the cost of medical services and future medical care needs for injured plaintiffs? Here is an interesting exceprt from a life care planner deposition in Madison, Iowa.:



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13 Now, one of the things you indicate here is that
14 the current cost data represents the fair market value of
15 goods and services in the geographic domain where the
16 majority of care is anticipated. Is that where those
17 figures come from?
....
23 A. Right.
24 Q. -- represents the fair market place for goods and
25 services in a geographic domain where the majority of care

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1 is anticipated.
2 A. Yes, sir.
3 Q. Is that what was used here?
4 A. Well, actually, we used the Madison, Iowa and
5 surrounding area where we expected the majority of her
6 specialty care to be performed.
7 Q. And where -- where do I get that data from the
8 Madison, Iowa area regarding costs or services?
9 A. Those things in which it's tied to a geographic
10 factor, such as Physicians' Fee Reference, where we have
11 physicians' service and therapeutic services and
12 diagnostics are geographically adjusted. For my inpatient
13 hospitalizations, we're using 75th percentile for the
14 nation, because the nation is broken in 11 regions
15 throughout the United States and then bundled. And so
16 we're representing the 75th percentile; that's Solucient.
17 The Physicians' Fee Reference is what has the
18 geographical adjustments. So physicians' services,
19 surgeons' services, psychological services,
20 physical/occupational therapy services and all the
21 diagnostic services, anything that CPT code generated is
22 adjusted for the geographical factor.
23 Q. You said you use a 75th percentile?
24 A. Seventy-fifth percentile for both: the
25 professional services and hospitalization. I'll let you

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1 know, by the way, Solucient has been acquired this year by
2 Thomson. Thomson Healthcare Corp. If you're going to do
3 a research on it.
4 Q. Thomson Healthcare Corp?
5 A. Thomson Healthcare something; I'll have to go
6 back and get it. Just renewed our data with them and are
7 going through evaluating it again.