Being involved in an accident doesn’t just end with the event itself; a person involved can begin to accumulate bills related to the accident that occurred. There will be more and more expensive bills depending on what the accident was like and its consequences.
In some instances, the claim with the insurance provider may have been settled before any bills from the accident were paid or even generated, leaving the client with several obvious debts. But don’t worry, a lawyer can help you with this issue.
What kind of medical bills could I be paying?
The law in most U.S. states indicates that if a person causes injury to another person in the event of an accident, they must be responsible for all of their medical bills. In addition, if the person has injured themself, they must see a doctor and pay for it.
The most common thing is a misunderstanding with the insurance company, which considers that the accident is already solved when the victim must still make medical visits, care, or even physical therapies. The moment the insurance company terminates the case, it is no longer responsible.
What does a lien on medical bills mean?
A lien on medical bills is a right to seek reimbursement or withhold money for unpaid medical services. It can be made out to an insurance company or even a governmental entity.
When treatment is an emergency, the hospital often performs the procedure without receiving the appropriate payment from the victim in advance. Still, it then exercises a lien on the full cost of the medical treatment. This is charged to the person causing the accident.
This move is also very common for insurance agencies when the other party involved in the accident files a claim with the hospital to hold you responsible for the expenses. The company then contacts you and asks for a lien on the payment.
Alternatively, if the government ends up paying for the medical treatment, the governmental entity has the right to seek reimbursement from the hospital.
How to Negotiate a Medical Bill
Insurance companies or providers will help you recover money from medical bill withholding. However, it is a process that can take years. In addition, they end up negotiating for less than the amount paid to expedite the process.
Because of this, personal injury lawyers are born to help the victim through the entire legal process of medical bill withholding and reimbursement and get a refund to pay the bills.
A personal injury lawyer will help you negotiate the cost to pay the medical bills, depending on the litigation caused by the injury. It is possible to get at least 20% less on medical bills and sometimes as much as 66% less.
What does a personal injury attorney do?
Personal injury attorneys are dedicated to litigation within the law caused by personal injury. They will negotiate for reductions in medical bills after a settlement has been reached where the victim has come out on the wrong side of the negotiation.
Now, it is not as simple as talking to the other side and trying to reach a middle ground, this is legal work like a jury case, so the personal injury lawyer must follow a series of procedures to achieve the best settlement for his client.
Contact insurance companies
The first thing the personal injury lawyer will do is contact your insurance company and even the medical providers so that they can present the case from their perspective and find out what the company’s track record is in other instances in which the client did not receive the money.
The background is of utmost importance to the attorneys since there may be a common denominator where the insurance company is not appealing for the rights of their clients the way they should. In that case, you should be wary of the insurance company.
Check billing statements
Another job is to check all statements by the client towards the billing process; normally, there are two types of billing statements, the HCFA-1500 forms if the treatments were in a private clinic or UB-04 if it was in a public or governmental hospital.
These forms are used for physicians to make their health insurance claims when requesting reimbursement from insurance plans offered by governmental entities such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Tricare.
The attorney should check billing codes to ensure that claims agree with the patient’s medical history and keep track of medical treatments received and medical expenses to track the total cost of accident medical care.
Protect the interest of the client
Under U.S. state laws, the attorney works hand in hand with governmental entities such as Mediacare or Medicaid and protects the interests vested by federal law in the client.
Reduce medical bills
From there, the attorney begins to negotiate possible reductions in medical bills based on all his investigation of the case. These negotiations go directly to the doctors or hospitals affected by the withholding of the bill.
It is possible that, in the beginning, full reimbursement of the bill may be requested; however, by properly presenting the case and all the physical material collected, a personal injury attorney can significantly reduce the medical bills.
For years I have studied American finance regulations. All the information in this blog is sourced from official or contrasted sources from reliable sites.
Salesforce Certified SALES & SERVICE Cloud Consultant in February 2020, Salesforce Certified Administrator (ADM-201), and Master degree in “Business Analytics & Big Data Strategy” with more than 13 years of experience in IT consulting.