When You Are Injured In A Motor Vehicle Collision, You Should Always File Under Your Health And Hospitalization Insurance Policies
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(866) 735-1102 Ext 645
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When we first interview clients who have been involved in motor vehicle collisions, they are sometimes unsure of whether they should file under their health and hospital insurance policies in order to pay their medical and hospital bills. The attitude of some clients is that “why should my insurance company pay these bills when this wreck was the fault of the careless driver.”
Our advice to all of our clients is to always file claims under all available hospital and health insurance policies to help pay the medical expenses that are incurred as a result of the collision caused by the careless driver.
The automobile liability insurance company is not entitled to the benefit of health and hospitalization insurance that you or your employer paid for. This is a benefit that belongs to you and you should make a claim for it.
This means that you can recover from your health and hospitalization insurance policies and also recover from the liability insurance policy that covers the careless driver. Although it is quite possible in many cases that there will be a double recovery, that is that you will be paid twice for each medical bill, that is only fair to you because you or your employer have paid the premiums for this insurance.
The negligent party’s insurance company is not entitled to a credit or offset for the money that your health insurance company pays you or your medical providers. That means that the negligent party’s insurance company has to pay the full value of the claim without any reduction for any sums that you may have recovered from your insurance company.
Medical providers are sometimes reluctant to file a claim under your health insurance policies when they know that your injuries resulted from a motor vehicle collision and that you have a claim against the careless driver’s insurance company. The primary reason for this reluctance is that in most cases, these insurance policies will not pay the full amount of the doctor’s bill and your doctor or other health care provider is not allowed to charge you for any amounts that your insurance company does not pay. Under the agreement with your insurance company, the doctors, hospitals and other care providers must accept whatever your insurance company pays as full payment of their claim even though the insurance company will not pay the full amount of the bill.
Your health care provider would much rather recover their full bill from the proceeds of your claim against the careless driver’s insurance company. However, in most cases, the insurance company will not allow the health care provider to collect from any source more than the insurance company allows for the doctor’s claim.
The good news for you is that your health insurance company will satisfy completely all of your medical expenses and, in addition, you can recover the full amount of your medical bills plus the other elements of damage from the negligent party’s insurance company.
If your health care provider will not allow you to file a claim under your insurance policy, you should contact your lawyer who can immediately resolve this issue with your health care provider and the insurance company.