When you suffer a personal injury after a car accident, you need medical treatment. Whether you find yourself with your primary care doctor, an orthopedic, a physical therapist, or a chiropractor, you need to get treatment in order to get better. But that treatment gets expensive after even a few visits.
So how do you pay for your medical treatment?
There are several options out there for you but today, we want to focus on your Medical Expense Payments coverage.
If you don’t have medical expenses payments coverage on your car insurance policy, call your insurance agent and get it. This coverage is invaluable to pay for treatment while you are in treatment.
Many people think that the other, responsible party will pay their medical expenses. However, that responsible person will only pay one time after all of your treatment is over. That payment will come from the other person’s liability coverage.
Back to Med Pay.
While med pay coverage is optional, every insurance policy is required to offer you med pay on your car insurance. However, you are allowed to reject it. If you reject it, there is nothing we can do to help you get that coverage after the fact. If you do have that coverage, there are a couple of things you need to know about it.
1. Reading the Coverage
First, you can stack med pay for each vehicle you have on that policy. So you have $2,000 in med pay and you have 4 cars, then you have $8,000 in med pay. If you only have $2,000 in med pay, call your agent and increase that number to something much higher but within your budget.
2. Reimbursement as you go
Second, if you are injured you can be reimbursed as you go. Every time you get a bill you can submit it to your car insurance and they will send you a check for each bill. This is helpful because, while you will need to front the expense initially, you will not have to wait until your case resolves to get reimbursed.
3. Getting what you paid for
Third, you are entitled to reimbursement for the amount you paid out of pocket and for the amount that your health insurance company has paid on your behalf. You are not entitled to reimbursement for the amount of the bill that was adjusted by the insurance plan.
4. Paying back a secondary payor
Fourth, if you have Medicare, then you cannot keep this money. You have to reimburse Medicare from this money for what they paid for your accident-related medical expenses. If you do not do this, then Medicare can withhold future benefits until this amount is recovered.
This is just an overview of med pay rules that the insurance companies follow here in Virginia. If you have questions about your med pay claim, give us a call and we’d be happy to help. We frequently assist our personal injury clients with their med pay claims when they need help.
