The Origins of the Life Care Planner

Various legal actions involve life care planners in one way or another. In medical malpractice cases, personal injury cases, or even some workers compensation cases, a life care planner is used by one side or the other to help determine and prove the cost of caring for the injured party for the rest of their life. The life care planner will literally estimate every necessity for life and how much each of these necessities will cost.

The term "life care plan" first appeared in a treatise on damages in tort actions. Here, life care plans were introduced as a tool for determining economic damages in civil litigation. Life care plans were touted as a way to analyze an individual's current and future needs as a result of an injury. Four years later the term was introduced to the health care industry in Guide to Rehabilitation by the same author.

By 1986, this same author, Dr. Paul Deutsch, conducted a training program in Hilton Head, SC, where over 100 rehabilitation professionals spent two days learning about the life care plan. Also at this time, it became clear that many so called rehabilitation experts were using life care plans for purposes contrary to the ethical purposes of rehabilitation process and were using the term "life care plan" despite having little knowledge on any appropriate use of such a document. For this reason, in 1992, five rehabilitation professionals, including Dr. Paul Deutsch, gathered to determine the problems with the life care planning industry and develop a training program consisting of eight 2-day tracks.

Eventually, a company in the business of setting up training programs, Rehabilitation Training Institute, was contracted to set up multiple training programs throughout the country. Dr. Horace Sawyer at the University of Florida eventually integrated the program into the University's Continuing Education Program where it now consists of six modules.

Along with the program at the University of Florida, a handful of other institutions offer some training in life care planning. Georgia State University offers a class titled Assessment of Rehabilitation Potential which covers life care plans as one of five assessment techniques covered. Kaplan College offers an online course similar to the 6-class online program offered by the University of Florida's continuing education program. As of this writing, there is no institution offering a degree course of any kind in becoming an expert in the development of a life care plan.