When an injured person hires a lawyer to seek recovery, and there are medical bills, it too often happens that the injured person gets a bad result because the inexperienced attorney doesn’t know how to handle what is called “subrogation.” Please let me explain.
When either a government program like Medicare, Medicaid, Veteran’s Administration, or Indian Health Service pays medical bills or provides services for an injury—like an automobile accident—they have to be paid back. The same situation applies to medical providers or if your health insurance pays the medical bills. The right by a third party who pays your medical bills to be paid back is called “subrogation.” The logic behind it is that your medical bills were part of the damage claim you made, and so when you recover them—you must give money back to the entity that actually paid the bill.
Too many inexperienced attorneys ignore these legal responsibilities. Sounds kind of good—you don’t have to take part of your recovery and pay that bill back. But, the consequences can be really bad—and they will usually happen after the lawyer has been paid and gone, and part or all of the money you received is spent.
For Medicare, to ignore this responsibility, you can lose your Medicare benefits and have your Social Security benefits taken until all the sums owed are paid back.
For medical providers and insurance companies, they can—and will—bring a lawsuit collection action against you for the amounts that are unpaid.
Experienced injury attorneys take care of these issues on the front end. There are many strategies that can reduce the amounts owing—or increase the amounts received to cover the bills owing. The worst strategy for the client, and the one the inexperienced attorneys frequently pursue, is to ignore the debt.
At Schoenbeck & Erickson we know how to help you with these challenges—and to solve them in your best interests.