Before You Handle Your Case On Your Own
In this article, we’re going to talk about the number one tip for people who are thinking about handling their personal injury case themselves. And this applies whether it’s a work injury, car crash, fall down, whatever it is especially nursing home or medical malpractice.
But before we get into it, what is the number one thing for you to know? The number one thing you got to know and the number one thing that’s going to give you the most success in your injury case if you’re considering just handling it yourself is this, DON’T DO IT.
Don't Handle Your Case Alone
Why? I know it’s self-serving, I’m a lawyer. I make my money by people like you hiring me, but I am not using you right now. The reason is that the complexity of injury cases, the amount of phone calls and letters and all of it is unbelievable. Now, on a teeny tiny case, you can do it. But you can still get yourself in trouble on a big case.
First, one of the things that a lawyer does is make sure that we’re identifying every defendant and every insurance policy, you might think your case is limited if we don’t identify. If we don’t identify you, if you don’t identify every defendant and every insurance policy, you might think your case is limited to like $25,000 policy when in fact, there might be a million-dollar policy on another defendant that you don’t know about.
You Need To Calculate What You Have To Pay
So, here's another thing to think about. Whenever your medical bills are paid by health insurance or anyone else, that entity whether it's Illinois Department of Health Care and Family Services Public Aid Medicare, Medicaid or health insurances like Aetna, United Healthcare, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and any healthcare or if you’re an employee that gets benefits through an ERISA-based plan, meaning it’s a benefits plan organized under an ERISA Law, which is a Federal law.
Each one of those has a different means of calculating what you have to pay them back and even if nobody paid the bills, if a doctor send a lien, which is a law of almost every state. Every state has lien laws where if a doctor renders you service and you get paid from a third party for an injury, they’re entitled to maintain a lien on the claim.
Now, there’s no liens on worker’s comp cases, but my point is all these entities, either by Statute or by contract have a right to get paid back. So what do you do when you paid some deductible? Some of the doctors have liens, your health insurance paid some of it. Your car insurance paid some of the medical bills, you got a million people with their hands out asking you for money.
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The Insurance Company Can Help You Or Break You
There are two ways, it goes one way. If you’re stuck with it, you can end up getting sued by one or more of these entities to get their money back or they mess your credit up. Another way, they can do it is the insurance company you’re settling with can say we will work it out with them. Don’t worry about it, and like basically what happens is when I work out your bills, I call the doctors, I cut their bills way down and you get the difference.
So, if there’s a $10,000 bill and an attorney is handling it, for you I can knock that bill down to maybe $2,000 and that $8,000 goes to you because my attorney’s fee is fixed at a percentage of whatever we get for you.Whatever I take away from the doctor goes right into your pocket. And when an insurance company that you’re settling the case with says, “Don’t worry about it, we’ll take care of the bills.” They’ll say, “Well, look you have $10,000 in medical bills.” That’s a lot of money, “We will give you a thousand dollars on top of the $10,000 in medical.”
In your head, you’re thinking, “Wow, this is awesome. I settled my case myself for $12,000.” No, you didn’t. You’re only getting a thousand dollars or maybe they’re giving you two grand above the ten grand bill. They may be writing a check for two grand, but that ten thousand dollar bill, they’re picking up the phone calling the doctor and cutting a deal. So they’re really settling your case for about $4,000, you think you settled your case for $12,000. You really settled your case for about $4,000 had you used an attorney even if all they did was get you the same $12,000. You would end up with way more money in your pocket which is why handling these cases on your own or letting the insurance company help you with the case and handle it for you and work out the bills, they’re the ones who save all the money.
Rules Are Rules In The Court
It puts way less money in your pocket, so you should never do that. Last thing I’m going to say is these cases have become so complicated, all the judges are overworked. They’re frustrated, they’re tired, they’re not going to take it easy on you. Sometimes, they’re nice to you when you’re Pro Se or by yourself. But I’m going to tell you, it’s really not a situation where they’re going to do a heck of a lot for you.
The rules are the rules. And unfortunately, you’re expected to know the rules and follow the rules just as well as anybody else. I’ll give you an example, a guy called me about a car accident case with very serious injury. The insurance company offered them $20,000 and his back is bad and I’m going to tell you, I’ve been doing this for around 25 years. Now, I’m pretty good at reading people and whether they’re full of beans of not, this guy’s not full of it and from the symptoms, he’s describing to me it will not surprise me if this dude ends up with back surgery.
Now, if he hadn't hired me, accepted the $20,000, sign their papers, his case is over. So now, he's got a sir a back surgery to pay for and what if the back surgery doesn't work? What if the back surgery makes them worse? What if he needs another back surgery after that? What if his back injury ends up ruining his life? Well, he settled it for two grand early on probably because he was pressed for money. But once you're done, you're done.
And that's what insurance companies do so, it is literally. Unfortunately, the only thing insurance companies love is money and power, and that's their passion. And unfortunately, paying making sure you get the medical care you need, making sure you get taken care of, if you're off work with an injury, taking care of you in any way even though it's their responsibility to do it. They don't care about it, they want to reduce that as much as possible keep as much money in their bank accounts. Put nothing in your bank account, if they can get away with it and you help them when you try and handle these cases on your own.
So, you know whether you ever hire me or whether you hire somebody else or whether you just decide to do it yourself, at least I can have a clear conscience. I've warned you but if you or a loved one has been hurt, and you need a lawyer please consider getting a free consultation you can reach me.
I give free consultations at 312-500-4500. If you've been injured and you need to talk or you have any questions, I offer a free no-obligation case strategy session. I am happy to answer your questions or you can get more information at my website at www.DeSalvolaw.com.
