If you’ve been injured in a truck accident in Ohio, one of your first concerns is likely how you’re going to pay for your medical treatment. The reality is that Ohio truck accident medical bills can quickly spiral into hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars, especially with catastrophic injuries. Understanding who pays for what can help you navigate this complex situation and ensure you get the medical care you need.
Who Pays Truck Accident Medical Bills in Ohio?
When you’re hit by a truck and you’re injured, you may be in the hospital while your health insurance is covering everything. While your health insurance may ultimately end up getting some money back if there’s a lawsuit, up front, your health insurance will pay–whether it’s Medicare, Medicaid, workers comp, or private health insurance.
Should you file a lawsuit after a truck accident, your health insurance will look to be reimbursed by the party or parties at fault when the case settles. This is standard procedure across Ohio for truck accident cases.
What Happens If You Can’t Work or Maintain Insurance?
This is where things can get complicated. If you can’t work due to your injuries and for some reason you aren’t able to maintain your insurance policy, you’ll lose your insurance policy and then you’ll have to go on Medicaid. This happens all the time in serious truck accident cases.
If you lose your job due to your injuries, you can go on unemployment. We also look to see if your employer has a short-term or long-term disability plan. If they do, we would use that, and then we’d have to look and see if they have language that says they have to be repaid. Some do, some don’t.
The difficult part is that Ohio doesn’t have personal injury protection (PIP) coverage that can help people with their wage loss prior to settlement. So if you’re out of work and you’re not getting a paycheck, people are really at a loss for how to make ends meet after an accident. This is why having an Ohio truck accident attorney medical bills advocate is crucial to help navigate these financial challenges.
Understanding Truck Accident MedPay Ohio Coverage
One important thing to know about paying your medical bills after a truck accident is to make sure that the medical providers bill your health insurance first. This way, MedPay is left over to be used to pay co-pays and things of that sort, rather than letting the medical provider take all the MedPay.
Don’t sign anything giving medical providers authorization to use up all your MedPay coverage. When you’re in the hospital emergency room, you’re not looking at what you’re signing to get your medical treatment, and you’re typically in no position to review these documents carefully.
There are pros and cons to how this works. If they bill MedPay and you have a $50,000 MedPay policy and the hospital uses $30,000 of it, that’s great because that’s how much has to be repaid. It’s not like Medicaid, where the bill might be $30,000 but they only pay $2,000, and then the insurance company wants to only pay $2,000 to reimburse Medicaid.
Ohio Truck Accident Health Insurance Reimbursement Requirements
If there’s not enough insurance coverage from the at-fault party, an experienced truck accident attorney works to reduce the amount that has to be paid back to health insurance. In Ohio, we have a statute that allows us to say if the client is not fully compensated for any reason, you can reduce the amount that has to be repaid.
Medicare and Medicaid give you a one-third reduction right away, but you can also request more reductions. It kind of makes sense that Medicaid should get their money back since you’re not paying for it, but we’re often negotiating with three or four different parties on the front end and then we’re negotiating with the health insurer on the back end.
Who is Ultimately Responsible for Your Bills?
The parties who may be responsible for paying your Ohio truck accident medical bills include:
- The truck driver’s employer or truck owner
- The truck manufacturer (if the accident was caused by a defective truck)
- Maintenance companies (if they did not maintain the truck in working order)
- Shipper or freight loaders (if they loaded the freight incorrectly or negligently)
- Potentially truck brokers (there’s currently a federal court case deciding whether brokers can be sued for negligent hiring)
The truck driver has to have at least $750,000 in coverage, but that’s not enough when you have a catastrophic injury. That’s why we look at all these other potentially liable parties to discover additional sources of money.
What Happens If There Is Inadequate Insurance Coverage
When someone has severe, life-changing injuries after a truck accident and the defendant only has $750,000 in coverage, they get $750,000. This is why you want to be able to go after multiple parties–the trucking company, the owner, the broker, the company that loaded the truck. You want to be able to go after everyone’s policies because they stack on top of each other.
We’ve had cases where there was a $1.5 million policy, but the trucking company paid $3 million total–they paid the additional $1.5 million out of their own pocket because big companies have assets like trucks they could sell, and they typically carry larger insurance policies anyway.
Important Steps to Protect Yourself
Here’s what you need to know about protecting yourself when dealing with medical bills after a truck accident:
- Make sure medical providers bill your health insurance first. This preserves your MedPay coverage for out-of-pocket expenses.
- Don’t sign authorizations allowing medical providers to automatically access your MedPay or other insurance coverages.
- Send all medical bills to your attorney so they can properly manage the process and negotiate reimbursements later.
- Get medical attention immediately–your health comes first, and documenting your injuries from the start is crucial for your case.
Why You Need an Experienced Attorney After a Truck Accident
These cases can be really complicated, but they can also be straightforward depending on the circumstances. When someone dies and there’s a $750,000 policy, insurance companies will usually pay the full policy amount. But that’s not really a success when someone’s life is clearly worth more than that.
The complexity comes in cases where you’re negotiating with multiple insurance companies and health insurers while trying to maximize your recovery and minimize what has to be paid back. An experienced Ohio truck accident attorney medical bills professional understands how to navigate Ohio’s laws regarding health insurance reimbursement and how to structure settlements to benefit you the most.
Get Help Managing Your Medical Bills
Dealing with Ohio truck accident health insurance and medical bills after a devastating accident shouldn’t add stress to an already difficult situation. The parties responsible for the accident should ultimately pay for your medical care, but the process of getting there can be complex. An experienced truck accident attorney can help ensure your medical bills are handled properly while you focus on your recovery. Schedule a risk-free consulting by contacting Chester Law Group today.