How Can I Pay My Car Accident Medical Bills

Getting injured in an automobile or truck crash can be very expensive. When you are rushed by an ambulance to an ER, have x-rays and/or or MRI’s performed, and go to doctor’s and physical therapist’s appointments, the car accident medical bills can quickly add up to thousands of dollars. You may not be able to work.

Getting your medical expenses paid can be one of most difficult and frustrating parts of being in a wreck.

Why? Although you might assume that State Farm is going to start paying your bills, the opposite is true. The other driver’s insurance company does not want you to get the medical treatment you need so it doesn’t have to pay for it.

So a friendly representative will often make vague promises to someone not represented by a lawyer, only to delay and even deny his or her claim. The injured person won’t think he needs to hire a lawyer and will then be forced to accept a low-ball offer —  and still have to pay back a stack of bills.

Read Top 10 ways insurance companies trick you after you are in a car accident.

If the company should decide to pay you, it won’t ever pay your bills right away. Texas law does not impose any deadlines and you can be sure that State Farm is not in a hurry to write you a check before it has to.

In the meantime, you need help. How can you get the medical treatment you need and pay for it?

Options

The best choice is to hire a good injury lawyer.

Our team at Berenson Injury Law will help you pick the best ways to pay from all available alternatives including these resources:

A. Health insurance: if you are covered by a plan, you should file on it. But there are complications that are discussed in more detail below.

C. Personal injury protection benefits: this is a fund that pays every person in the vehicle’s medical bills and 80% of lost wages, up to the purchased amount. This is usually $2,500 but we see policies higher than that. Often, our clients did not know they had PIP, or we obtain it when their companies cannot prove they rejected it.

D. Medical payments: this coverage is like PIP but with one important difference — it must be repaid if you recover damages from a third-party.

E. Uninsured/underinsured motorists: The first applies if the at-fault driver has no liability coverage, he hits-and-runs, or other circumstances.

The second can be demanded if the other driver does not have sufficient insurance to pay for all of your damages caused by the crash.

We are currently handling a case where in addition to fighting for the entire liability policy, there are three separate PIP policies and an underinsured motorists policy we are also pursuing.

The following may be available to you as job benefits:

F. Workers compensation plans

G. Short and long-term disability plans

You may have several other choices:

H. Medicare or Medicaid: these government programs pay certain expenses depending on age, disability, and/or income qualifications.

I. Installment agreements: we sometimes advise our clients to make small payments each month until final payment arrangements are later made. In certain cases, our office will even make interest-free payments for our clients to help them out.

Each of these nine alternatives has its merits but each can be problematic. A good personal injury lawyer can explain the pros and cons of each option to help get your medical bills paid promptly.

Health insurance

You might assume that your HMO is a panacea that will pay all of your medical bills and leave you with a large share of the settlement or verdict, which is always our goal. But we frequently see these problems when our clients try to file on their health insurance and we fight these giant companies to make sure that their rights are protected:

• The deductible has not been met yet;
• The health insurance carrier claims it is secondary to the at-fault driver’s liability company;
• The plan limits which doctors are covered or the number of visits it will pay;
• The health insurance company slowly pays some of your bills, then demands reimbursement under an unfair process called subrogation;
• The medical facility or doctor is out-of-network;
• The hospital or doctor refuses to file its bill with your company;
• The hospital and certain ER’s file a lien with the county clerk and insist on full payment; and
• The hospital or doctor don’t want to get involved in litigation and refuse to even see you.