Car accidents happen to all of us, sooner or later. Rarely has a driver not encountered a car accident.
It often happens that there are injured people at the scene of an accident.
This can lead to many complications that interest you and are related to the provision of medical treatment and medical bills.
We will endeavour to clarify certain topics related to medical treatment and medical bills.
Medical treatment at the scene
If you are bleeding or have an obvious injury, paramedics will assess your condition and, if needed, transport you to the hospital for treatment.
In many cases, however, the injuries are not as obvious.
The stress of the accident and adrenaline in your body immediately after the crash may “hide” some of your symptoms, leading you to believe you are not badly injured.
In addition, bruising and swelling can occur during the hours following the accident so you end up feeling worse later.
It is surprising how many people will refuse medical treatment at the scene of an accident and go home, only to end up at the emergency room a few hours later.
The reasons I have heard range from lack of health insurance and fear of medical bills to, “I thought it was just the shock and my pain would improve after a while.”
In most situations, the pain will increase in the hours or days following an accident.
The majority of medical professionals agree that most pain after an accident occurs 48-72 hours after the collision.
Read more about: The Accident Scene – What You Should and Shouldn’t Do
That’s right, two to three days after the actual accident.
In order to rule out more serious injuries, and decrease the pain and suffering after the collision, it is essential to immediately ask to be taken to the closest emergency room.
Read more about this topic here.
Medical Liens in Car Accident Cases
We deal with medical liens on a daily basis.
What exactly is a medical lien?
Well, when you’ve been injured in a car accident, and you’ve been seen by a doctor or hospital, they know that you may have a settlement coming down the road, and in order to protect their rights to protect their bills, they sent out notices to you to insurance companies, to lawyers and establish a right to get some of that money back.
Why do they still do that if you have private health insurance?
Well, the answer is simple, not sometimes most of the time they think they’re gonna get more money out of it. Them going after you know your settlement instead of your health insurance. That’s a topic for a whole other day. But suffice to say they get more money if they are able to get them to get it directly from the car insurance company. So, who is entitled to establish a medical lien in Missouri? And it’s usually, hospitals, podiatrists, dentists, physical therapists, chiropractors, doctors. And how do they establish that lien? In order for it to be legally enforceable, they’ve got to follow the law and there’s a statue in Missouri that outlines exactly what they have to do and if you skip a step the lien is not valid.
So basically they have to send it in writing, it is certified mail. It’s got to give the name of the party and identified the correct lien holder. It’s got to identify the correct insurance company and obviously the amount of that lien.
Read more about this here.
Medical Experts in Car Accident Cases
Medical Experts are very important when it comes to car accident cases. They are not cheap by any means, but in most instances, they help us understand then pinpoint the injuries that clients suffered. And they can pinpoint causation our clients were injured through the negligence of another driver.
The few examples that I explained this week: Head clients that had their backs injured cervical spines, lumbar spine and such. In three of those cases, the orthopaedic specialist that is treating our clients has advised that clients need surgery. Clients are reluctant that to do it at this time, and so the experts have given us the opinion of how much a future surgery will cost, and that has helped us make the insurance companies understand the extent of our client’s injuries, that the accident cause these injuries. Those opinions are very expensive but they drastically helped us resolving cases for our clients. That’s why medical experts important in personal injury cases. We hope this has helped you.
Read more about this here.
Medical Payments Coverage After Car Accident
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The strain of Medical Bills After a Car Accident
The biggest issue
One of the biggest issues that we deal with on behalf of our clients, or medical bills after a car accident
They can be life-changing because those medical bills can go up pretty quickly, a couple of days stay at the hospital can be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars range and it’s scary. It is scary. A lot of my clients ask me well what are my options how can I get rid of this?
A couple of ways to go about it and we are going to go through the most simple ones to the more complicated ones. Obviously, if you have health insurance that should kick in right away. So that health insurance can be through your employer, that health insurance can be health insurance that you purchased privately. It can be through your spouse, or through your parents. They should kick in and cover those bills and whatever is leftover. The deductible co-pays that would be your responsibility.
Read more about this topic here.
Who is Going to Pay For My Medical Bills?
How to pay medical bills is one of the questions that I usually get from my clients that have been involved in a car accident.
And then they tell me: ‘Well, I have heard that the insurance company for the other driver will pay all of my medical bills and they have to pay them as they come.’
Well, that’s not entirely true. The very first question in any car accident case in the Saint Louis area is: ‘Whose fault is it?’
If it’s determined that the other driver had a fault, then his insurance company will accept liability and they will pay for your damages.
So, the question is: ‘What are Your damages?’ One part of those damages are your medical bills.
So, the insurance company will pay for your medical bills. However, it’s not true that they will pay them as they come.
They will actually pay them at the end of the case, once you have completed your treatment, once all the other damages have been determined and you send all of that information to the insurance company.
Watch out if you’ve got private health insurance, because in some instances your private health insurance company may be entitled to get some of the money back that they have paid for your medical care that was related to the car accident.
Read more about this topic here.
Health Insurance Deductible Not Meet?
Today we are going to talk about the issue that comes up in car accident cases a lot, and we deal with it here at the office lot. So let’s assume you are involved in a car accident. You have private health insurance and you end up going to the hospital. About a month later or two, you get a bill from the hospital that states the original amount of the charges $10.000. Your private insurance kicked in and they paid 90% of the bill. And you are stuck with the $1000 because you did not meet the deductible.
What are your options in that scenario? Couple of ways to go. Read more about this here.
Medicare and Car Accident Cases
We’re gonna talk a little bit about Medicare and car accident. So, a lot of our clients are Medicare recipients. And when they get involved in an accident, there’s some layer of complication because of Medicare.
What is Medicare?
Generally, Medicare is available to people 65 years and older. And a couple of subcategories would be people with disabilities and end-stage renal disease. So, let’s just assume is the elderly 65 years plus. So, when they get involved in a car accident. Then the hospital or their medical provider may elect to charge Medicare directly for the medical bills.
Generally speaking, Medicare will pay those bills. However, our client is then responsible to reimburse Medicare for those bills that they actually paid out. So, in a car accident, you’re basically entitled to your property damages, medical bills, pain and suffering.
So, the aspect of the medical bill that Medicare paid already. Once the case starts settling will have to pay them back. And there’s a formula that they use. We have to contact them and fill out some paperwork. Then they figure out the numbers that they are allowed to get back based on the amount of settlement. One aspect of Medicare that really complicates cases is, unfortunately, it’s also in the more serious injuries. That is the Medicare set-asides.
Medicaid and Car Accident
A lot of our clients are Medicaid recipients, and unfortunately, they also get involved in a car accident. Then the question becomes, what’s going to happen to their medical bills?
If they hospitalized and our medical provider chooses to build Medicaid.
What is Medicaid?
Medicaid is basically state-sponsored health insurance for people that are really needed, that are disabled or they not financially yet to have their own private health insurance. So, Medicaid will in most instances pay those bills. However, it will then be entitled to a recovery of those medical bills, if you are successful in obtaining a settlement for your injuries from the at-fault party, or their car insurance company. It’s a straightforward process. We contact Medicaid or the third party people that negotiate on their behalf. They send us a number, and we have to pay them back.
Should I use Medicaid?
This is one of the most common questions I get from my clients. The short answer is, yes. The reason for that is medical bills will get to pay, you will get the medical treatment that you need. Unfortunately, the way that tort reform has panned out here in Missouri is that you can then expect a lower settlement from your personal injury car accident case because juries in Missouri nowadays are allowed to only consider the paid amount of your medical bills, and Medicaid really only pays 10-20% of the charged amounts. As I said the short answer is yes, use it. But you will have to pay them back down the road once the case settles One last aspect of Medicaid and car accident cases.
Read more about this topic here.
These are some of the topics related to medical treatment and medical bills after a car accident. If you want to find out more about any of these topics in more detail, call us at 314-352-6800.
Bajric & Ramic Law Office
Nedim Ramic – Auto Accident Lawyer – Personal Injury Attorney
