What Is The Role Of Your Health Insurance In An Injury Lawsuit?
Brian O Sutter
Personal Injury
Healthcare and insurance has been a hot topic as of late, which brings up a lot of different questions for different people in these cases. There may be a bit of uncertainty with overall thoughts surrounding healthcare but we can help navigate some situations where a legal case and health insurance may both be part of your concerns. What part does your health insurance play when you sustain an injury at work, in an accident or at a business where you are seeking compensation? Just like most other legal cases there are multiple scenarios but we will highlight a few. Damages In A Personal Injury Case
Medical bills are commonly factored in under the damages portion of the compensation in a personal injury case. For the most part it is understood that if someone or some business causes an injury to a person they are liable to cover, at the very minimum, the cost of medical bills resulting from the injury. This is where the presence of the health insurance makes things a little more complicated.
For instance, if the health insurance company has already paid for the medical bills the plaintiff can still seek compensation for those bills. However, the money the guilty party will have to provide will not go to the injured person but back to the insurance company. The insurance company themselves will often file what is called a lien. This is just the legal term for what was described above. If you receive compensation fort he medical bills you have and the insurance company has already paid them, then they should be the ones getting reimbursed for it. It makes sense really.
Damages Don't Only Cover Medical Bills
The health insurance does cover the medical part of the injury scenario, however there will be more to it than that if the case is significant enough. Therefore, if your concern is that the reimbursement for the medical bills will only benefit the insurance company there is more that has affected your health during the time of injury. When your ability to live the life you were living before your injury has changed then the causes of these new difficulties can fall under damages as well. For example, when an injury has caused you to miss work, there should be compensation for that money that was lost. When an injury has lead to pain and suffering, which most of them do in some way, you are entitled to compensation for that as well. These costs to the defendant are separate from those that the health insurance has covered and goes to the person who has had to deal with these painful issues, you.
Even With Health Insurance You Can File A Case
The presence of medical care may cause some people to feel that compensation outside of the medical bills is not obtainable and therefore they shouldn’t even file a suit because the insurance has already paid for it. Our suggestion is to consult with an injury attorney to see how your case may pan out. It's understandable that one might be concerned with filing a case where the only party getting compensation is the insurance company, which seems like a waste of time. Consulting with an experienced lawyer, who has dealt with these exact cases many times is the best option. Plus you can do that on AllInjuriesLaw.com for free. So you won't be wasting money trying to figure out if you are going to get any money for your injury.