What to Know About Medical Liens
When you suffer an injury due to someone else’s negligence, you still must pay your hospital bills. In many cases, your healthcare will cover a percentage of your medical costs. Despite your health insurance paying medical costs, you can file a personal injury claim.
What happens once you receive the settlement? Do you have to pay the health insurance company back? In some cases, the health insurance company may put a lien on your settlement.
What Are Medical Liens?
In some states, a health insurance company or medical provider can file a lien for repayment. You may even have to sign a lien letter that says that you are allowing the provider or insurance company to file a lien against your settlement. There is a strict protocol that these liens have to abide by.
In most states, the company has to file the lien within 180 days. It has to have your proper address, name and dates of service. Now, if a lien from a hospital isn’t valid, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have to pay your bills. You still owe for services. The point of medical liens is to reimburse for payment.
What Are Government Liens?
If you have federal or state insurance, you may have to deal with government liens instead. For those who have Medicare or Medicaid, it is the government that pays for healthcare. When it comes to these kinds of liens, what you have to do following a settlement depends heavily on the agency itself. For instance, if you have medical care paid for by the VA, you may have different requirements than someone who has Medicare.
If the government pays for any portion of your medical care, then the government can request reimbursement when you receive your settlement. When you receive a request for reimbursement, you should contact your lawyer. Your lawyer can help you negotiate the lien and ensure that the agency has a right to demand reimbursement.
If your medical bills were paid for by health insurance, you are not off the hook for the bill. You still owe the insurance company or hospital money for services rendered. This is where your settlement comes in. The settlement allows you to pay for these costs. One of the benefits of health insurance, however, is that when you pay back the health insurance company, you only have to pay the discount that they originally paid. To understand more about medical liens, set up an appointment with a personal injury attorney, like from A and Z Law, today.