Paying Medical Bills

Answer:

Regarding your medical bills as it relates to a personal injury matter, you get in a car accident and you have to go to the emergency room, you had to be flown the helicopter to a hospital, and you’ve had all of these chiropractic treatments or surgery, etc. Your health insurance has paid for these things. There are a couple of things in Arizona that can happen. First of all, medical providers, hospitals, they can file what we call medical leins. They’re recorded with the county. If they file a medical lein, whenever the proceeds come in for your case, we’re obligated to pay these leins first before dispersing any compensatory funds to you or settlement funds to you as it relates to your personal injury claim. AHCCCS, or the government insurance company, they have what we call statutory leins. They are leins that are automatic by statute. We have to call these folks and deal with them regarding the bill that they’ve paid in response to your medical care.

There’s a negotiation that happens in there. We talk to these folks and get these bills down to make sure that there is some recovery for you and then we go on from there. Will you end up having to pay for these medical bills, etc? The short answer is, yes, unless they file no claim and they’re not interested in being reimbursed or compensated and a lot of insurance companies won’t sometimes. There’s a variable there, could be, maybe not be, but we’d have to look at each individual bill, each individual claim for treatment that you’ve received. We’ll walkthrough. We’ll get them negotiated down to their lowest amount to make sure that we maximize the amount of money that you, the injured party, takes home as a result. Make sure you gather up all of your medical bills, not just the bills but the records as well because if this goes to trial, we’re going to need both the bills and the records. The bills show the economic impact. The records show the actual injury. You’ll need both of them to craft up a good demand and make a good claim for damages in the trial. Discuss it with one of our attorneys. We’ll make sure we get all of the information we need to pursue those claims.