The number 1 rule when it comes to bringing a claim for personal injuries is to tell the truth. When you see your doctor, always be honest when talking about your symptoms of pain and any problems which you've been having. Never exaggerate or overstate your complaints of pain, but don't understate your complaints or try to minimize them.

Be careful with your choice of words. Consider the following example. Let's suppose a student takes a test and receives a failing score of 25. One month later, the same student takes another test and this time receives a score of 60. The student is asked by his parents how he did on the second test, and the student says "I did much better than I did last time." While this statement is the truth, it's also misleading because anyone listening to the student would not realize that the student flunked the second test. A more accurate and truthful response would have been "I did much better than I did last time, but I still flunked."

When your doctor asks how you're doing, it may be true that you're better than the last time you saw him. But if you're still having a lot of pain, or if you're still bothered by your injuries, to simply say that you're doing much better than last time could be misleading. Try to avoid describing how you are in terms of better or worse than last time. If you're asked to compare this visit with the last visit, you can say you're not as bad as you were before (if that's the truth), but then describe how you're doing at the current time. If all you say is "I'm doing better than the last time I was here," and you don't give any further explanation, the doctor will probably write in your medical records "patient much better." Later on when it's time to try to settle your claim, the insurance company for the other driver will look at your medical records and question whether you were still having problems at the time of that particular visit.