Are Medical Bills Piling up After an Injury? Our Expert Lawyers Will Help You Navigate the Process
Medical bills can add up quickly after an accident or injury. This can lead to a lot of stress about how they’ll be paid and who should pay them.
At GRL Law, we work with all of our personal injury clients to navigate their specific financial situations and health care coverages. We deal with insurers, collectors, and other parties to make sure you get the care you need while your case is pending. Discover how we provide peace of mind throughout the process.
Get the Medical Care You Need With Help From Our Attorneys
If you’ve been injured in a car accident or other incident, the medical care that you need will depend on your specific injury and the recommendations of your doctor. In these circumstances, it’s important to be familiar with your rights, your insurance, and the benefits you have available for your situation.
Our attorneys are able to help you decode your policies to help you understand them. Here’s a quick guide to how your medical bills may be handled in a variety of scenarios. Contact our attorneys to chart a specific path forward for your specific situation.
If You Have Health Insurance
If you’ve been injured in Iowa and have health insurance, such as Blue Cross Blue Shield or United, you should typically just turn your bills in to your insurer for payment. This is what health insurance is for, and companies are generally initially responsible for paying medical bills, no matter whether the injuries were caused by someone else.
However, later in the process, you may recover compensation from the party who caused the accident that led to the injury. In such a case, if your health insurance company has already paid your medical bills, they often will assert a “subrogation lien” against the settlement or verdict in the case.
For example, if Blue Cross paid $10,000 for medical bills and State Farm insured the driver who caused the crash, part of any settlement or verdict against the driver will be for that lien and will have to be paid back to Blue Cross Blue Shield.
You might wonder why the at-fault driver’s insurance company isn’t paying your bills as they come in. They have a strategic reason. By delaying payment and pressuring you to settle quickly, they are trying to:
- Avoid Future Costs: An early settlement means they don’t have to pay for additional medical bills, ongoing pain and suffering, or a potential disability if your injury gets worse.
- Force a Lower Payout: The pressure of mounting bills often forces injured people to accept a lowball offer just to get bill collectors off their backs.
- Avoid a Lawsuit: They know that if you accept their offer, you can no longer sue them for a fair amount.
This is why if you have health insurance, it is typically best to just let it pay all the bills and then the responsible insurance company can pay them back when the time is right. It’s also why it is critical to have an experienced personal injury attorney on your side. We understand these tactics and will fight to ensure you get the full value of your claim, not just an amount that makes the insurance company happy.
If You Have Medicare or Medicaid
This is similar to if you have health insurance. It is general, if you are covered by Medicare or Medicaid, those programs with cover your medical bills even while an insurance claim or lawsuit is pending.
However, dealing with the government (especially the federal government) can be an arduous process. Having Medicare and Medicaid involved will slow down the claim and settlement process substantially. This is particularly true if you do not have a legal team on your side that knows how to deal with these programs and gets them to stay on top of a claim as much as possible. And it is extremely important that the government is paid back appropriately. If they are not properly accounted for, this can affect your eligibility for coverage and programs in the future.
For these reasons, if a family is financially well off or independent, there are some circumstances where it is at least worth considering paying your bills yourself instead of letting the government do it. This can substantially speed up the settlement process in some sentences. But once again, a proper legal team is essential to charting this course of action.
If You Don’t Have Any Health Insurance or Similar Coverage
If you don’t have any coverage, all is not lost! While your medical bills are not likely to be paid during the course of treatment, there are steps that can be taken to protect you.
First, if you are able to pay for your own bills, it might make sense to do so because you will be reimbursed once the claim is resolved. However, for most folks, it is not feasible to simply scratch a check to cover thousands of dollars of doctor’s bills.
If this is the case, a number of things can be done to protect you. While every step that can be taken is beyond the scope of this discussion, the following things can be sometimes be effective to buy time while a claim is pending:
- Put a hold on an account if the hospital or provider allows and agrees
- Begin a payment plan
- Obtain a loan
- Consider lawsuit financing
All of these options can be explored on your behalf by the right legal team. And every situation requires a different approach. However, rest assured that all is not lost if the bills are piling up and you have a good injury claim but don’t feel like you can wait for a settlement. There is plan to deal with the medical bills that can help, you just have to find.
Lastly, it is also important to highlight that an experienced claimants attorney can also negotiate outstanding bills and liens on your behalf at the same time or after they negotiate settlement with the responsible party. You can save thousands or more on what is paid to third parties if it is properly addressed. This is another extremely valuable benefit of retaining the right attorney as any savings obtained on your behalf goes straight into your pocket.
