by blazestar04 » Mon May 18, 2009 08:51 pm
Geico is offering me a 20,000.00 settlement that is to include pain and suffering and all bills, I did have preexisting back conditions before accident the agent said the Medical insurance does not have any liens against me but should they find out about the settlement I would be SOL... should I contact my medical insurance company I am told the bills total 22,000.00 where is my money?? Please advise
Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 09:56 pm Post Subject:
If I understand this correctly, you received treatment for injuries related to the accident. But the adjuster is stating that a prior injury was made worse by this accident so they are only considering the exercerbation of the injury and not all of the medical treatment. This is the reason for the $20,000 offer on $22,000 in medical bills. Correct?
If this is correct then your medical carrier should never ask for the entire $22,000 back... as they are only entitled to recovery for treatment related to this accident. As some degree of the treatment is related to a prior injury, the medical carrier is not entitled to recovery for the additional treatment needed do to that prior injury. The tricky part the question of how does anyone determine what treatment was for the prior injury and what treatment was for the accident. Answer... it really just needs to be agreed upon between the two parties. But I can say that health carriers rarely seek recovery. Also, when they do, they are usually happy to see anything paid back. So even if you need to negotiate what is owed on the bills related to _this_ accident, it should be relatively easy.
You can notify your health carrier and ask that they send a lien letter out. what this would do is make the adjuster obtain a settlement amount with the health carrier on the medical bills. He would then settle with you with the understanding that he'd need to pay a portion to your heath carrier. The downside with this is that the adjuster is not very interested in low balling the heath carrier and he does not have much leverage over them as he's not the person who was treated/their insured. However, if _you_ don't mind putting some work into it, if it's even needed, you could probably offer to pay them back a really low amount. For example... if you speak to them you just tell them that much of the treatment was related to a prior condition and that your settlement with the other carrier was extreemly low. You then offer to pay them a few bucks. Usually they will take what ever you offer and move on to the next claim.
Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 05:50 am Post Subject:
Hey, wouldn't it depend upon the state law of the OP? In many states you are not required to pay back the health insurer if you have received compensation from then prior to the settlement with the at-fault driver's insurer.
OP, why do you want to pay back? You can well keep the entire amount that you have received from the other insurer. Check out with your state subrogation laws.
Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 04:59 am Post Subject:
I would contact your medical and be looked at and then turn the claim back in for more money however remember that they can battle this out and hold your money for a long time.
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