Social media mistakes in a medical malpractice claim

You’ve been the victim of medical malpractice — and it’s wrecked your life. Worse, the party who caused your injuries isn’t in any hurry to accept responsibility for what happened, and their insurance company is fighting your claim. They’ve even suggested that your injuries aren’t that serious.

You know you have to be proactive about claiming what you are rightfully due and the compensation you need, but you also need to go into heavy “defensive” mode, too. These days, it’s almost guaranteed that the other side will be looking closely at your social media for clues about how to diminish your claim.

Tips for social media use in a medical malpractice claim

Ideally, you should probably just get off social media entirely until your claim is settled. If that’s not a realistic option for you, here’s what to do instead:

1. Change your privacy settings. Go through your social media accounts and set them all to the strictest setting you can find, so that only your friends, family and followers can see what you post and nothing is “public.”
2. Narrow down your friends and followers. You’d be amazed how often insurance companies are able to sneak a peek at someone’s social media through their friends and followers. All it takes is a tagged post from a public account (or someone who is willing to “tattle” on you because they don’t believe you’re really hurt). Just “unfriend” anybody you don’t really know or trust.
3. Don’t take any new friend requests unless you know exactly who is asking. Sure, you end up with friend requests from all over because you’re pretty social online — but you need to stop accepting them right now. One could be a not-so-friendly insurance adjuster digging for information.
4. Turn off “check in” features on apps. You don’t need the other party’s insurance company knowing where you go, what you are doing or when you do it. They can try to use that information to advance the narrative that your life is “just fine.”
5. Watch what you post. Finally, don’t be your own worst enemy: Never post anything about your health, your social life, your work or your outings online while your claim is pending. Again, you have no idea how the information could be twisted against you.

Medical malpractice claims are always complicated, so make sure that you have experienced guidance from the very start.