Hi. I’m John Medler, personal injury lawyer for The Medler Law Firm – Personal Injury & Accident Attorneys. Today I’d like to talk about who is going to pay for your medical bills after an accident caused by someone else’s negligence. Let’s say you’re in an accident. The first thing that you need to know is were you in an accident as a result of you working for your employer? Let’s say you’re a delivery person and you’re in the delivery truck and you’re injured as you’re doing your job. If you’re injured as part of your work, then your medical bills are going to be paid by worker’s compensation. That means that your employer out of a special fund or pool of money that they have is going to pay for your medical bills.
One thing you need to know about that is that in a workers’ compensation case, your employer gets to direct your medical care. So if you want to go to doctor X, but your employer wants you to go to doctor Y, you’re required to go to doctor Y. If you decided to go to doctor X, you’ve got to pay for it yourself. And generally speaking, what will happen is that your employer will pay your medical bills.
If it wasn’t an injury caused through the scope and course of your employment, then you do like you normally would and you submit your health insurance card. That could be your private health insurance like Anthem or Blue Shield or something like that. It could be Medicaid if you’re a person of low income, it could be Medicare if you’re an elderly person, and it could be something called TRICARE if you’re in the military. Basically submit your health insurance card and your bills are going to be paid by your health insurance company.
If you have no health insurance, one thing that you can do is go to your health provider and ask if they will take your case and give you medical treatment on a lien basis. That means they’ll basically give your personal injury lawyer a letter that says, when this case is done at the end, please pay me out of the settlement.
One final source of funds is what’s called ‘Med-Pay.’ Many times on your auto insurance, you’ll get a benefit that’s called Med-Pay. Sometimes it might be five thousand, ten thousand dollars, something like that. And that will basically pay you for your medical bills in an accident regardless of who’s at fault. So check with your own auto insurer to find out if you’ve got Med-Pay. It’s as simple as sending over your medical bills to the auto insurer, and they should be able to give you that check.
So that’s who’s going to pay your medical bills. If you’ve got more questions about things like who’s going to pay my medical bills, or questions relating to personal injury, check out our website at www.MedlerLawFirm.com or call The Medler Law Firm – Personal Injury & Accident Attorneys and speak with our Orange County personal injury lawyer for a free consultation.
