Hi, I’m John Medler, personal injury lawyer with The Medler Law Firm – Personal Injury & Accident Attorneys and today I’d like to talk to you a little bit about Medicaid, the state agency that helps people of low income pay their medical bills and how that might affect your personal injury settlement.
Let’s say that your personal injury lawyer has gotten you an excellent settlement and now the lawyer takes out his fee and it’s time to give you your share. Hold on. If your family is of limited means and you’re enrolled in Medicaid and if Medicaid has paid any part of the medical bills that were involved with your personal injury case, you may have to pay back out of your share of the recovery, the amount that Medicaid paid for you. I know that stinks, but that is the law. Fortunately, we are able to talk to the folks from Medicaid and we’re able to negotiate that amount down a little bit for you. Which we would be happy to do on your behalf.
Another issue you may have is that if suddenly you come into a lot of money from this personal injury settlement, Medicaid may say, wait a minute, you make too much money now and now you’re off of Medicaid, and of course you don’t want that. You want to be able to get the Medicaid benefits that your family has come to rely on. We have several solutions for that and one is what’s called a Medicaid special needs trust. It’s a special kind of trust that we set up for you in which your personal injury settlement goes into a trust and then a relative or family member can administer that trust on your behalf and then you still qualify for Medicaid. So we can help you through all those steps as we go along.
To learn more about how Medicaid may affect your personal injury settlement, check out our website at www.MedlerLawFirm.com and give our Orange County personal injury attorney a call to request a free consultation.
