Personal Injury Settlements: Can My Attorney Get My Bills Reduced?
One way to increase the amount of money recovered by an injury victim is to decrease the amounts being disbursed to others. Since all disbursements in this context come from the same pot, a decrease in one is necessarily an increase in another.
Maryland has a statute that requires some health insurers to reduce their reimbursement claims.
Health insurance companies pay millions of dollars in medical claims to doctors and hospitals every day. Normally, that is the end of the process. When a health insurance company makes a payment to a medical provider, and the cause of the medical treatment is determined to be the fault of another, the law creates certain rights for the payor.
This legal right is called subrogation, in some contexts. It gives the insurance company the right to be reimbursed from the proceeds of the claim against that at fault person. The diligent personal injury attorney Attorney Eric T. Kirk will also review the medical bills and track the payments, to ensure that no unrelated services are being included in the reimbursement claim. If a subrogation claim has been made, the personal injury attorney will initially determine its validity. The thorough lawyer will likewise negotiate with a subrogation representative to attempt to get the best possible scenario based on the relative equities, perhaps even where there is no right to a reduction. Knowledge of the various methods to get these bills reduced is a vital role of a personal injury attorney.
