5 Ways to Get Your Medical Bills Paid After a Car Crash

The most common way people get their medical bills paid after a car crash is through personal injury protection. We refer to it as PIP here in Florida. This is a system that was devised in the late ’70s, that allows for up to $10,000 of your medical bills to be paid after a car accident, no matter whose fault the car crash was. So it could be your fault. If you were operating a motor vehicle and crash into a tree, you’re entitled to get up to $10,000 of medical treatment through your personal injury protection coverage. What really confuses people here in Florida is you could be sitting at a red light and get rear-ended by some knucklehead staring at their cell phone, and you still have to use your auto insurance to pay for your personal injury protection coverage. It doesn’t really make a lot of sense that somebody else causes the accident, but you have to use your auto insurance to pay for your bills. But that’s why they call it no-fault coverage. So the personal injury protection coverage will apply to you no matter whose fault the accident is. There are certain statutory requirements for PIP. Right now, you have to treat within 14 days of the accident in order to be entitled to personal injury protection benefits. There are a lot of other nuances to the PIP statute that you’d really need to speak to a lawyer about. 

Another way people get their medical bills paid after a car crash here in Florida is through medical payments coverage. This is coverage that you can purchase in addition to personal injury protection. While personal injury protection is a mandatory coverage, medical payments coverage is not mandatory and not everybody purchases it on their auto policy. Usually here in Florida, we see $5,000 med pay policies. The great thing about med pay policies is they will pay the 20% your personal injury protection doesn’t pay. And it’ll also pay if you have a deductible or things like that. So the med pay policy can really help fill in the blanks of the things that personal injury protection doesn’t cover. 

The third way medical bills get paid after a car crash here in Florida is through health insurance. Health insurance is probably the most common way that bills get paid after the PIP is exhausted. The weird thing about using your health insurance here in Florida is you can’t use it until your PIP is exhausted. So your PIP is primary. And after your PIP is exhausted, you can use your health insurance to pay for your medical treatment because of a car crash. A lotta times I talk to my clients and they really are frustrated by the fact that someone causes an accident and their health insurance is paying. And a lotta times there’s confusion thinking that the other person’s auto insurance should be covering their treatment rather than their health insurance. It’s almost always in your best interest to get medical treatment through your health insurance. You’re usually gonna get more treatment for less money because you’re gonna get the benefit of your health insurance’s deals they have with medical providers. So instead of paying retail for the medical treatment, you’re gonna be getting the wholesale bargain that these big health insurance companies strike with hospitals and doctors. So health insurance is by far the best way to get treatment once your PIP is exhausted. 

A fourth way people get treatment after a car crash here in Florida is when they have a workers’ compensation claim. Now, this only applies to people who are hurt on the job. But if you’re hurt on the job, you can get your medical treatment through your workers’ compensation carrier, and you can still make a claim against the people that caused your accident. In these cases, your workers’ compensation carrier might have a lien on your case if it was with a third party. Workers’ compensation does not have liens on uninsured motorist settlements. 

And the fifth way you can get your medical bills paid after a car crash case here in Florida is you win your case. So if you have a pile of medical bills after a car crash, and you win your case, or you settle your case, you’re gonna end up having to pay your medical bills out of that settlement. So when we are working through settlements, we always talk to people about money in their pocket, because it can be really misleading to say your case settled for a hundred thousand dollars, but then I only hand a check to my client for $50,000. The client would justifiably be a bit confused unless I was very clear with them in the beginning that even though the case is settling for a hundred thousand dollars after we pay all these medical bills, there’s only gonna be 50,000 leftover.  So a lotta the times we talk to clients about what they’re gonna have in their pocket to the best that we can know that, after the settlement and all the dust clears. So I like to refer to it as, after we clean up the mess, what’s gonna be left over for the client to put in their checking account. 

So those are the five ways you can get your bills paid here in Florida after a car crash. 

If you have questions about any of this stuff, give us a buzz at 1-800-ASK-DAVE. 

We’re here to help.