A Future Care Report – sometimes called a Life Care Plan – is an official report used to assist in valuing the care needs an injured party may require in his or her future. These reports can range from being quite detailed (for example, how many diapers an infant might require in a year) to more general in nature (an expected allowance to cover off equipment and assistive devices).

But while each report is different, they all have a common goal: to be used as a tool to either value a claim when setting reserves or as a basis for negotiation purposes when it comes time to settle. In this article, we explain the steps you should take to ensure a Future Care Report is properly reviewed so that we can expedite the valuation process and assemble a report for your client – at no cost to you.

First Things First

Once you receive the initial report, the most important thing you can do is to review it from beginning to end, for accuracy and clarity.

For example, if your client was injured in a motor vehicle accident and you requested the report from an Accident Benefits perspective, did the report provider use the Professional Services Guidelines (PSG) rates appropriately? Other questions to ask yourself during your review process could include the following:  

• Are the PSG rates based on the appropriate impairment level (for example, catastrophic or non-catastrophic determination)?  
• Were the appropriate Form 1 rates considered in the personal care section of the report?
• If you asked for a global report, does it include descriptions and cost charts from both a tort perspective and an Accident Benefits perspective?

If you end up answering “no” to any one (or perhaps all) of these questions during your initial review, speak to your report provider and they will be more than happy to address these issues. If necessary, you may need to get them to revisit certain sections and then send you an amended report.

Next Steps

After reviewing the Future Care report (either the first draft or an amended one), and you feel confident that it is clear, accurate, and contains all the required information, send it to us with your instructions on how we should value it. These instructions could include the following:

• Valuing the report from an Accident Benefits perspective, a tort perspective, or both;
• Which scenario(s) to include in our valuation of the report if the report outlines more than one;
• Specific requests such as leaving certain items in the report out of our valuation, adding others in, and whether to include items noted as “reserve” or “for future consideration”;
• If the report outlines outside funding sources (such as ODSP, ODB, etc.), should we take these funding sources into account?
• If your file is an Accident Benefits file and the report was written based on a determination of non-catastrophic impairment, has the client since been deemed to be catastrophically impaired or should we assume they will be in the future?

The more thorough your valuation request is, the less likely it is that we will have to reach out to you for clarification or additional information. For example, should you ask to value a Future Care report based on market rates from an Accident Benefits perspective, we would need you to tell us how you would like us to treat the Attendant Care benefit if an Assessment of Care Needs (Form 1) is either not mentioned in the report or provided in the request.

How Much Time Do We Need?

Once we receive the report, we will send you a confirmation note that tells you the valuation process is underway and that you should expect to receive our official response in approximately two weeks’ time. This two-week timeline is in place for three main reasons.

• Because we do a line-by-line analysis of your report, we check carefully to ensure that nothing is missed or overlooked.
• Since we do hundreds of future care valuations each year, this two-week period gives us enough time to a) receive impairment ratings from the life insurance companies and then b) schedule enough internal time to complete all the requests as and when promised. 
• If there is no specific urgency in a valuation request, our two-week turnaround period also provides some flexibility in that it lets us accommodate those valuations that must be expedited.

What If You Have A Rush Request?

At McKellar, we always do our utmost to accommodate all timelines given to us, but a proper valuation requires enough time to:

• receive available impairment ratings;
• review the report on a line by line basis for accuracy and completeness;
• draft the report;
• cost the needs; and,
• have our full valuation checked multiple times. The more time we are given to prepare our valuation, the more thorough we can be.  

Think of it this way: if a request is straightforward, we can complete our valuation that much faster. The more scenarios included in the report, however, the longer it will take us to complete. So if you ask us to provide an Accident Benefits future care valuation taking into account a report that is solely based on market rates, we may need additional time to apply the appropriate Accident Benefits limits, including PSG rates and Form 1 rates.

Once You Receive Our Valuation

After thoroughly reviewing our valuation, if you still have questions or need additional clarification, please contact us immediately. We would be happy to review it with you to make sure you understand our methods and our calculations.

At McKellar, this is all part of ensuring we provide first-class valuation services for both you and your client.