How Will Your Medical Bills Get Paid After an Accident?

After an accident when someone is injured, they go to the doctor or medical professional. That’s natural; people want to get better and get out of pain. But that’s not an option for everyone. Many people don’t have the finances or insurance available, to get them the medical help that they need after an accident.

That’s one major reason why many accident victims, after an accident, don’t seek the medical help that they need. But that shouldn’t be the case–one of the things that your personal injury can do for you, is help you tap into insurance sources that you may not have known existed, or help you work with doctors so that they will treat you.

After a Car Accident

If you are in a car accident, you have personal injury protection, or PIP. PIP allows you immediate access to medical care, by providing you access to a fund of 10,000 (or more, if you paid for a higher policy), that you can apply towards your medical bills. PIp is available, even if the accident was your fault and even if nobody was at fault.

Some PIP policies have deductibles. But that’s OK, in many cases your doctors may just hold your balance until your case resolves, or in some cases, the doctors may even waive the deductible.

If you have what is known as medpay coverage on your car insurance, you can also use that, to pick up and pay the medical expenses that your PIP doesn’t provide for including the deductible.

Beyond PIP and Car Accidents

Of course, many accident victims find that their medical bills exceed that 10,000, or they were injured in a non-car accident, such as a slip and fall. In that case, you can use your private health insurance, if you have it, and want to do so, including things like Medicare or Medicaid or any government program that pays for your normal health related expenses.

Again, your attorney will work with your doctors to help hold off repayment on things like deductibles that you may owe out of pocket even with insurance.

Letters of Protection

Some doctors will even work with you and treat you on what is called a letter of protection or LOP. An LOP is a promise to your doctor that if he or she refrains from collecting on your balance, that you will repay that doctor from the proceeds of any settlement or verdict that you might receive.

Many doctors are amenable to this, as they understand that injury cases can take time to resolve, and they understand that while no case is a guarantee, there is some security knowing that you might have a settlement or verdict coming to you at the end of the case.

One benefit to this is that whatever you are out of pocket and whatever balance is being held by the doctor, won’t go to collections, or to debt collectors, or ruin your credit, while you are waiting for the case to resolve.

Schedule a consultation with the Tampa personal injury lawyers at Barbas, Nunez, Sanders, Butler & Hovsepian today for help with medical bills and expenses, after any kind of accident.

Source:

leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=display_Statute&URL=0600-0699/0627/Sections/0627.736.html