Medical Bills

Medical Bills

When somebody’s been injured and they have medical bills coming in, they often ask us “what do I do with these?” And there’s a number of different options. If our clients have health insurance, health insurance should be getting billed. If they don’t have health insurance, or maybe there’s a copay or deductible they can’t afford to pay, sometimes we can ask the doctor’s office to hold off on payment. It’s called a Letter of Protection. We just send a letter to the doctors saying “hey we’ll protect your right to claim this debt, and make sure that it’s paid back out of the settlement when we get it.” Sometimes our clients don’t want us to do that, sometimes our clients want to handle it on their own, and maybe set up a payment plan with the doctor’s office, or maybe talk to them directly. There’s a number of options though, and that’s why it’s important to talk to your attorney that’s representing you and make sure that your bills are being handled the right way. What we don’t want to happen is you have bills coming in and you just let them pile up, you don’t let the attorney know, you don’t ask the attorney for advice, and they go into collections and it harms your credit. At least tell your attorney about it, so that we can come up with a game plan on how we’re going to tackle those bills.