ATLANTA PERSONAL INJURY LAWYER

CONTESTING SUBROGATION IN PLAINTIFF'S PERSONAL INJURY MATTERS

Home > Contesting Subrogation in a Plaintiff’s Personal Injury Matter

In nearly every personal injury case, injury attorneys must deal with the resolution of health care related liens incurred by the client before the client can receive their portion of a settlement or verdict.  If an injured person uses medical insurance offered through his/her employer to pay medical bills related to an accident, an employer or insurer may have the right under ERISA, a federal law, to be re-paid for the entire amount paid to medical providers under the health policy.  However, the law surrounding medical liens is complicated, and often injury attorneys do not have the expertise to get the best result.  Often, insurance companies will hire companies to send out “Notices of Lien” which state that the lien falls under ERISA, when in actual fact, it does not.  Sometimes, attorneys agree to re-pay much more than is legally required.   There are very specific and complicated rules as to whether any particular claim of lien falls under federal law or state law, and it can make a huge difference in what the client is obligated to re-pay.  In one of our recent cases, the amount of the medical bills, for which the insurance company claimed reimbursement, was several hundred thousand dollars.  What the client was eventually legally required to re-pay was less than $5,000.  Check with our lien repayment team before agreeing to pay a substantial amount of money as reimbursement under a lien.