The answer is “maybe.” If you have health insurance, you can get all the treatment that you and your doctors think you need.
If you are injured in a car accident, the law allows you to recover money for your medical bills, even if your health insurance pays for your treatment. That’s because sometimes your health insurance has to be paid back from your personal injury recovery.
When you’re treating, one of three things will happen with your medical condition and treatment:
- You’ll get better completely, and your doctors will release you without the need for future treatment; or
- You’ll need to continue treatment indefinitely, maybe for the rest of your life, which sometimes happens with severe injuries; or
- You’ll reach a point called “maximum medical improvement” (often abbreviated “MMI”), which means you’ve gotten as good as you’re going to get, which is not fully healed, but there is nothing else that can medically be done to get you back to full recovery. This often happens with injuries like a knee or shoulder surgery that doesn’t require a full joint replacement.
With the second and third options, our firm talks to your doctors about what the future treatment and costs will be for option two, and what sort of permanent limitations you may have for options 2 and 3. We include this information in the demand we make to the insurance company and fight to get you more compensation than someone who has been released from treatment.
Your health insurance will continue to pay for your treatment in the future, even after you’ve settled your case. Additionally, they can only recover money for what they’ve paid up to the point of your settlement or verdict. (Medicare is a huge exception to this, and requires a “set-aside”, which is a fund to reimburse them over time.)
Our firm knows how to work with your doctors to calculate these numbers and get you as much as possible in a settlement or verdict. If you’ve been seriously injured, you have to find an attorney: the health insurance/ medical treatment landscape is just too complicated to navigate, as it’s a mix of state and federal laws, regulations, and administrative code provisions.
Contact us today for a free, no-risk consultation. You can reach us through our website by clicking here, or call us at 919-348-4361. You’ve got questions, we’ve got answers and solutions.
Health Insurance and Medical Provider Liens
Statute of Limitations Information
Avoiding Subrogation Fraud Against Your Personal Injury Claim
