Medical bills can rack up when you are in a Utah car accident and you don’t have private health care insurance. Even with personal injury protection benefits of $3,000 for medical bills, that rarely enough.
Here is how you can pay for your medical care after a car accident when you don’t have private health care insurance.
(1). Max Out PIP Benefits. Make sure you first max out all available PIP benefits to help you pay for your medical care after a car accident. Sometimes you can stack PIP benefits from other car insurance policies. Your Utah car accident lawyer should always be looking for insurance policies and benefits to cover your car accident injuries.
(2). Stay of Collections Agreements. Sometimes doctors will stay any collections efforts for past medical services already billed for. So the Instacare, ambulance and emergency rooms sometimes will enter into a “collections stay” agreements to avoid those medical bills being sent to collections or being sued on them. This requires your attorney or yourself to call these providers and document the collections stay agreement.
(3). Lien Based Medical Care. Lien based medical care is where the doctor agrees to get paid out of your car accident settlement, once the case settles. The doctor doesn’t get paid until you get a settlement. Lien based medical care is more expensive than paying as you go because a premium is build-in to take into consideration that the doctor doesn’t get paid until after the case settles. Which can be a year or more.
Common lien based medical care Examples.
Example Chiropractic Care. You are hurt in an American Fork 1-15 car accident. Your local chiropractor bills the first $3,000 to your PIP carrier and is paid. Any care above and beyond the first $3,000 is billed on a lien basis where the chiropractor gets paid when you reach a settlement. This same arrangement commonly happens with physical therapists.
(4). Surgical Funders. A form of lien based medical care is surgical funding. Surgical funding lien based medical care is where you need a surgery, but don’t have private health care insurance. The lien based surgical funder pay the shoulder or knee surgeon, the surgeons performs the operation and you pay the surgical funder a premium price to get the surgery.
Example. You hit your knee on the dashboard during a rear-end car accident in Pleasant Grove, Utah. The ER doctors indicate torn ligaments that require surgery. You don’t have private health care insurance and don’t’ have the cash pay ability to front $15,000 to the surgeon. You can arrange a surgical funder to pay for the knee surgery, but you will pay $25,000 for the surgery, instead of $15,000 cash pay.
Lien based surgical care is very helpful in clear circumstances of a needed surgery caused by the car accident. Getting the surgery can really help the injured person recover and return to normal.
UTAH CAR ACCIDENT ATTORNEY Jake Gunter. Call/TXT (801) 373-6345 for a free consultation.