There are many ways as a medical provider to make sure the auto insurance company pays your bill. Sometimes, the easiest thing to do is let your patient’s personal injury attorney do the work and then make your payment at the end. To do that, you will need to have your patients sign medical liens.
How Do Medical Liens Work?
A medical lien is an agreement between your medical company and your patient regarding how your bill will be paid. Your patient agrees that you will be entitled to payment out of any eventual auto insurance benefit, award, or settlement. You agree to hold off on collecting your fee until then.
Once your patients sign the medical liens and you provide the necessary medical treatment resulting from their auto accident, the next step is to give notice to your patients’ attorney. You will need to send a copy of the consensual medical lien agreement along with a copy of your medical bill to the attorney representing your patient against the auto insurance companies. When your patient’s Old Waterside attorney negotiates a settlement, he or she will be required to pay you before disbursing funds to providers without liens or to the patient directly.
This protects you against a patient who may be tempted to use your share of the auto insurance benefits to pay household bills or credit card balances that have built up as they waited to resolve their auto insurance claims. Because the money goes straight from the attorney to you, you have more assurance that you will be paid properly.
If for any reason, your patient’s attorney fails to disburse funds to you according to your lien, your medical provider attorney can file a motion with the court in your patient’s case to make sure it gets enforced. This may be easier and cost less money than litigating the entire case yourself.
There are two downsides to medical liens that doctors, hospitals, and treating professionals should be aware of:
- They don’t happen automatically. If you forget to have your client sign a medical lien, or don’t give the attorney notice of your claim, you will have to collect what is left after all the other claims have been settled.
- They don’t guarantee a dollar-for-dollar return. If your patient settles for less than the total of all the medical expenses and attorney fees in the case, your best claim will be for your fair proportion of the claim. That means you may not get everything you charge, but you will still get paid before the attendant care relatives and other non-lien holding treatment providers.
How Our Meijer Experienced Attorney Can Help You
A medical lien is one tactic the medical provider attorneys at Christensen Law use to make sure their clients get paid. It can serve as an important safety net, should negotiations with the auto insurance companies fail. Don’t let that bill become an uncollectable account receivable. Protect your earnings by working with an experienced Meijer medical provider attorney to file and enforce medical liens to make sure you get paid.
To reach one of our personal injury attorneys in Ann Arbor, call 248-516-2975 or enter your contact information into the form below. Our firm offers a free claim assessment, so you have nothing to lose by getting in touch.
