After a car accident, a fall, or an injury.

Adrenaline is a good painkiller and a bad diagnostician. Plenty of people walk away from a collision feeling fine, decline the ambulance, and wake up on day two unable to turn their head. That delay is normal. It does not mean the injury was minor and it does not mean you imagined it.

What to do in the first week

• Get evaluated even if you feel alright, because documentation gaps are what insurers argue about later
• Write down what hurts and when it started, day by day
• Note the accident when you book, and bring anything the insurer has sent you
• Do not wait for it to settle down on its own before getting looked at

The insurance piece

For motor vehicle accident cases the evaluation gets documented for insurance purposes. Dr. Simaan has handled enough of these to ask the questions patients would not think to answer. One patient wrote that he was asking things they had not considered for their accident insurance needs, which is the part of this that has nothing to do with treatment and everything to do with not getting stuck with the bill.

Appointments are usually available inside the week. In the review that describes it, the appointment was the next day.