Tips on Getting Your Medical Bills Paid After a Serious Injury

Updated on April 16, 2021

Sustaining an injury is no picnic, let alone if it is a more serious injury. Besides the pain and debilitation, people are forced to worry about how they are going to be able to pay the medical bills associated with the injury. Because sadly, all too many people are not able to get proper coverage for their medical bills, or the insurance they do have is insufficient to cover all of the expenses. But worse than that, you may also have to deal with lost wages or other expenses brought about by your injuries. As such, here are some tips to get your medical bills handled.

How to deal with medical bills after a serious injury

Figuring out how to deal with one’s medical bills after a serious injury is going to depend on who was at fault. For example, if the primary fault for the situation that led to your serious injury, it may be a lot more complicated to deal with your medical bills. In the event that you are solely responsible, you will have to try to work with whatever insurance you have to make sure that you can get as much covered as you possibly can, should they either deny your payout, or give you a lower payout than you require for your medical bills. An attorney may be able to help you deal with a combative insurance agency, if you think you may be able to get enough extra money to cover your medical bills to justify going forward with that.

However, in the event that someone else is responsible for the injury, you may be able to seek compensation in order to deal with the medical bills, though the circumstances of the injury are going to affect how likely you are to be able to seek compensation, and if so, by how much. As mentioned above, someone may be only partially responsible, but the reverse is also true, where a court determines that another party is responsible for a majority of the culpability for the injury. Depending on how much more culpability they have, they may be expected to provide more or less compensation.

One of the big issues associated with getting your medical payments covered through legal compensation, however, is that the process is not exactly an immediate one. You may have to go through multiple rounds of negotiations with the people from whom you are seeking compensation, and it becomes all the worse if these people are not amenable to what you require for your medical bills and other related expenses you need covered. As time progresses during these negotiations, you may still have to keep up on your payments, possibly having to deal with being completely out of income in the interim, making it that much more difficult to deal with as a result. One big problem with determining this kind of thing is that there are so many types of injuries and different laws in different states. The complexities of the legal system are not exactly a fun time, but that is why there are lawyers to help guide you through it.

One of the major issues to do with different laws is that some states are considered “no fault” states, meaning that in the event that you are in a car accident with another person, you cannot pursue damages for the accident from them. Instead, your insurance agency will cover all or some of the medical costs, depending on the quality of your insurance. However, if your medical costs hit a certain level, your insurance agency may not cover it any further. After that point, you will either have to handle the outstanding balance or, if possible, have the outstanding balanced covered by your medical insurance. In this case, if you want to pursue damages in the event that your medical expenses are too large for your state’s “no fault” limit, you can just do a regular liability claim instead, trading the shorter length but lower payout for a longer process and higher ultimate payout if successful. Each of these have their own pros and cons, depending on what the circumstances of your medical costs are.

There are other circumstances that may come up, however. For example, if you are injured as a result of medical malpractice or medical negligence. In this case, if it was found that they engaged in either, or if they decide to settle with you for an amount that you find acceptable, they will cover a portion or all of your medical bills, on top of other expenses you have incurred as a direct result of the injury. The injury may also occur in a workplace setting, in which case your employer would be expected to compensate you under worker’s compensation. It is entirely possible that in all of these situations, that the person accused of causing these injuries may try to drag out the case or deny you, hoping that you will lose interest and give up. A lawyer will certainly help make it that much more difficult to pull that off.

The Editorial Team at Healthcare Business Today is made up of skilled healthcare writers and experts, led by our managing editor, Daniel Casciato, who has over 25 years of experience in healthcare writing. Since 1998, we have produced compelling and informative content for numerous publications, establishing ourselves as a trusted resource for health and wellness information. We offer readers access to fresh health, medicine, science, and technology developments and the latest in patient news, emphasizing how these developments affect our lives.