Future Medical Cost Calculator

Present value is a standard financial concept: it converts a future dollar amount into what that amount is worth today, accounting for the fact that money available now is generally worth more than the same amount received years from now. This calculator applies that logic, using Discount Rate, to convert projected future medical costs into a single today's-dollars figure — Total Present Value — the same technique used in real structured settlement and litigation valuation work.

Medical Inflation Rate projects future costs upward year by year (since healthcare costs have historically tended to outpace general inflation), which increases the nominal dollar amounts being discounted. Discount Rate then pulls those inflated future amounts back down to today's value. A higher inflation assumption raises Total Present Value, while a higher discount rate lowers it — the net result depends on the gap between the two rates, not either one alone.

Future surgeries are spread evenly across the Treatment Duration you enter, with each individual surgery's cost first inflated forward to the year it's assumed to occur and then discounted back to today's value the same way ongoing treatment costs are. This produces PV Future Surgeries, which is added to PV Ongoing Treatment to make up Total Present Value.

No. Real settlement negotiations and trials typically rely on a life care plan prepared by a qualified medical or vocational expert, informed by an individual's actual diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment trajectory — factors this calculator cannot know or model. This tool illustrates the underlying present-value mechanics with simplified, user-entered assumptions; it is not a substitute for a professionally prepared future-cost projection.

Adding more years of treatment adds more individual annual cost terms to the sum. Each additional, more-distant year is discounted more heavily than an earlier one, but a discounted future cost is still a positive dollar amount — it adds to the total rather than subtracting from it. So extending the treatment period always increases Total Present Value, regardless of the inflation and discount rate assumptions you choose.