Making Medical Payments After a Car Accident

Hi, I’m Roger Ghai of law offices Roger Ghai. I wanted to talk today a little bit about what medical payment coverage is and whether you should actually use it if you’ve been involved in a motor vehicle accident. First, let me tell you what medical payment coverage is. It is a specific policy that is on your vehicle that will pay all of your medical expenses to a certain amount of money depending on what coverage you purchased regardless of who caused the accident. This is what happens as a practical matter.
In a normal situation, you’ve been struck, you’ve been rear-ended by driver A. They’ve clearly caused the accident. The legal issue is, number one, we know of course that driver A, the person that struck you has to pay for all of your damages. But aha, let’s say, for example, you have actually what we call medical payment coverage up to $50,000 on your motor vehicle. That’s beautiful. It turns out really good for your case for a couple of reasons. Number one, regardless of who caused the accident, your medical bills can get paid almost immediately to whatever providers that you’re using. You don’t have to prove that the other party was at fault and so forth.
The other benefit of that is this. Let’s say, for example, that you had medical bills totaling in your case of 20 or $30,000 and your medical payment coverage paid all of those bills. What we don’t want to do is, we don’t want to notify the other person who caused this accident that all of your medical bills have been paid. No lawyers going to sit there and tell the other side, “Oh, yes, my client’s bills have been paid and so you guys don’t have to pay it.” No, it’s fully their responsibility to pay those bills.
When the lawyer prepares the demand package or a lawsuit is filed, we’re going to ask for those 20 or $30,000 to be paid from the other side even though your own insurance company has paid it through what we call the medical payment coverage provision. In other words, you’re going to collect it. It’s already gotten paid by your insurance company. They don’t have the right of reimbursement typically, so that’s going to be extra money in your pocket. Is that clear enough or not?
Male Speaker: Yes.
Okay. If you have any questions about whether you should purchase medical payment coverage on your motor vehicle, I always recommend that you do it. It’s for your financial protection and your mental peace of mind. Call my office at 770-792-1000.