How Fast Can I Get Paid?
Today's topic is: I got hurt in an accident, I need surgery, how can we get me paid as fast as possible so I can afford to have the surgery?
That's what a guy called me about. He was in a very serious car accident, and he had never really hired a lawyer before, but actually needed back surgery. Very severe injury and a very expensive surgery. And it turns out that his wife lost her job and their health insurance got canceled. So he needs the surgery for him to be able to feel better and go back to work, but now they don't have health insurance.
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Pre-Approval Medical Care
Had he gotten hurt at work, we would have a mechanism to get the surgery pre-approved or have a doctor agree to do the treatment. But because it's a third party, case there's no pre-approval for medical care. In fact there's really good reasons why you don't want the insurance company to pay your medical bills.
In a third party case like a car crash, fall down, dog bite, bar fight, or nursing home, cases like that. I'll write an article on that in the future. But anyway, so this guy's like "hey I don't have a lawyer, can you hurry up and just settle my case and get me money and then I can go have the surgery". This is what I told the guy, "you're thinking about it the wrong way, and that's not how these cases work".
Settling A Third Party Case
First you have to understand once we settle a car crash or like a third party case, the case is over. So what happens if I get you a bunch of money, you have the surgery, and then the doctor says "oh there's something else we missed. we need to do another surgery" or let's say the first surgery didn't quite handle it and they need to go back in and fix it. Once the case is over we can't go back and get more money. Let's say you have the surgery, two scenarios, one, you have the surgery, you're right as rain, that's the goal. But what happens if you have the surgery and it doesn't help? Or God forbid, are worse after the surgery?
Now we've settled the case at this level where your case is now worth a heck of a lot more money. What do we do? Well we're done once the case settles. The other thing for you to keep in mind is, it does take time for these cases to settle. It's not like you can hire me when you've got a massive amount of medical records, because insurance companies need the medical bills, your lost wage documentation that we get from your employer if you're losing time from work. They want the medical bills, the medical records and they want to demand letter in the right format.
Demand Letters
This is something that personal injury attorneys do wrong all the time. And frankly I did it wrong for a long time in my career as a younger lawyer, but I sure got it figured out in a hurry. If you write insurance demand letters using the right format with the right level of detail, you get much better offers in the cases. That's certainly true in my office, but it does take more time and effort to write the demand letters the right way. It's gonna take me time to get all of your medical records together and all your medical bills together.
Medical Records
The other thing about medical records and bills is, you might say, well I went to the hospital and then I saw Dr Smith and I saw Dr. Jones and I went to so and so Therapy Center. That's the complete list and you think that's all the medical providers there are, but here's something that's true. Many hospitals bill for the facility separately for the doctors, separate for anesthesia, and separate for medication doctors. Offices or medical facilities often bill for the facility separately for the doctors, and separate for therapy services. So you may have four medical providers and eight sets of medical bills and records.
How do I know that? Well one is, I have a lot of experience with medical providers and I know what to look for. But also, one of the reasons why we go through your medical records very carefully is to look for other medical providers. It's a good thing I do it, because often my clients have tens of thousands of dollars of additional bills that they don't even remember. Maybe it got mailed to them but they didn't know what it was for.
Quick Settlement Is A Terrible Idea
Those are reasons why a quick settlement in order to pay for a surgery is a really bad idea. All I have to say on that topic is, beware of settling your case in order to pay for a surgery, because once your case is over it's over. So if you're struggling with this issue or some other issue where you have questions or you just feel like things are not going right in your case or you're worried about making sure all your ducks are in a row, absolutely give me a call.
