When you’re involved in a serious accident, you need medical attention right away. Depending on the severity of your accident, you could be facing high medical bills. When you know that another individual or entity is at fault for your injury, you need to seek compensation to cover any accident-related expenses both now and in the future.
When large medical bills occur either from emergency care or initial treatment for your injury, you may have medical liens placed on your case’s settlement. This can be alarming, and you may be worried about how this affects your case and its outcome. Here’s what you need to know about medical liens and the role they play in your personal injury settlement.
What Is a Medical Lien?
A medical lien is a legal, formal way for healthcare and insurance providers to collect their share of your settlement money for all treatment and services. It is typically due to the victim being unable to pay their accident-related bills. They can also be placed on your settlement to cover costs for ongoing treatment.
However, medical liens are only paid by settlement dues. If no money is recovered, the companies that placed the lien will not get paid. In some cases, providers have to wait extended periods of time to get the full amount of payment for medical services. This is why some healthcare organizations only provide medical lien patients with emergency services or limited treatment.
Who Can Place a Medical Lien?
Medical liens can be placed on your case’s settlement from a wide range of medical care providers and insurance companies, including:
- Doctors
- Hospitals
- Chiropractors
- Medical, Medicaid, or the VA
- PPO or HMO organizations
- Workers’ compensation insurance
- Health insurance
- Auto insurance
Even when your insurance company has covered some or all of your care, they may place a medical lien on your settlement amount to cover their part of your bills. Since medical liens can be a challenge to deal with, it’s important to work with a top personal injury attorney.
How Medical Liens Affect Your Settlement
When medical liens are involved in your personal injury settlement, it can make things confusing. The medical liens in your case directly affect the amount of compensation that you take home. In many cases, medical liens are so high that the settlement amount barely covers the total and leaves you with an unfavorable take-home amount.
It’s important to make sure that you and your lawyer get an in-depth understanding of the liens that are placed on your settlement. You need to factor in your personal payments, as well as the payments to your providers via liens, in the settlement amount that you ask for.
Negotiating Medical Liens
Because medical liens can take a good amount of your settlement, it’s important to utilize negotiation with the help of your attorney whenever possible.
If the lien is held by a private insurance company or if a company asks for more than what is owed, an attorney can negotiate with them to successfully reduce the amount. Sometimes, payment plans are an option.
Medical lien holders often work with the attorney to reduce the payment during a negotiation of a medical lien. In the end, they simply want to make sure they get paid quickly.
How We Can Help with Your Medical Liens
Rafi Law Firm is here to partner with you to fight your personal injury case and get the best take-home compensation possible. We work to alleviate the financial burden on our clients, so they can feel better about their future.
We will help you reduce medical lien payments that come out of your settlement and stay in-the-know about any information regarding medical liens and payments. Your satisfaction is our priority, and we are not happy until you receive more than enough for your injury compensation.
With a strong history of success, you can have confidence that we will lead you on the right path in your injury case, especially when dealing with medical liens. Whether you’ve been involved in a car accident, a shooting, or a medical malpractice case, we have the knowledge and experience to get the best results possible.
Contact Mike Rafi Today
Get in touch with top Atlanta personal injury attorney Mike Rafi to start working toward the best outcome for your case, medical liens or not.
Call 404-800-1156 or fill out our online form to get your free case evaluation today!
