When you’re injured in an accident, the last thing you expect is for the hospital to play a role in reducing your injury settlement. However, there are some tactics that hospitals use to make sure they get paid as much as possible, often at the expense of the injured individual. Here are three dirty tricks hospitals use in Indiana to cut into your settlement.
1. Hospitals Ask if Your Visit Is Related to an Accident or Injury
Have you ever noticed that shortly after you check in at a hospital, they ask if your visit is related to an accident or injury? This isn’t just small talk. Hospitals are very strategic about this question because if your visit is tied to an accident, they have more ways to get paid. Typically, this involves submitting your bill to your automobile insurance through something called MedPay or placing a hospital lien on your settlement.
Why does this matter? While hospitals certainly deserve to be compensated for their services, when they know an accident is involved, they can inflate their charges. For example, instead of billing your health insurance, which has pre-negotiated rates with the hospital, they bill your car insurance’s MedPay provision. Health insurance might only pay $300 for an ER visit that costs $4,000, but your car insurance won’t negotiate as much. As a result, the hospital gets more money, but the higher charges can reduce the funds available to you from your settlement.
2. Hospitals Go After Your Car Insurance
Once the hospital identifies that your visit is related to an accident, they’ll try to find out if a car was involved. Why? Because they want access to your automobile insurance policy. Specifically, they are targeting MedPay, a feature of most car insurance policies that provides money for medical bills after an accident.
Unlike health insurance, your car insurance company doesn’t negotiate hospital bills down. If the hospital sends a $5,000 bill to your MedPay coverage, your auto insurance will likely pay the full amount, even though health insurance would have paid far less. This results in hospitals getting a higher payment, but it leaves less money available from your settlement to cover other costs, including your personal recovery.
3. Hospitals Exploit the Hospital Lien Statute
In Indiana, hospitals have another weapon at their disposal: the Hospital Lien Statute. This law allows hospitals to place a lien on your injury settlement to ensure they get paid. While it’s reasonable that hospitals need to secure payment, the way the lien statute works can leave injured individuals with very little of their settlement.
For instance, if your medical bills amount to $80,000 and the at-fault party’s insurance offers you a $100,000 settlement, the hospital could claim nearly all of that money—leaving you with just 20% of the settlement. This is a harsh reality for many accident victims who expect their settlement to cover medical bills and other costs, such as lost wages, future treatment, and compensation for pain and suffering.
Hospitals often file these liens after they’ve already collected MedPay from your auto insurance. This double-dipping can drastically reduce the amount of compensation that ends up in your pocket.
How to Protect Yourself
Dealing with these tactics on top of your injury can be overwhelming, but there are steps you can take to protect your settlement. An experienced Indiana injury attorney can negotiate with hospitals and insurance companies to reduce liens and ensure that you walk away with as much of your settlement as possible. Your attorney’s goal is to maximize the amount of money you receive—not to maximize the hospital’s profit.
If you’ve been injured and are worried about how hospitals may impact your settlement, it’s important to get legal advice. Don’t let these dirty tricks take more of your money than necessary. At the Marc Lopez Law Firm, we’re here to turn your frustration into compensation. Call us today at 317-632-3642 for a consultation.
