One thing that is often surprising to our clients when they have been injured in a car wreck or truck wreck is that the health insurance company (BlueCross BlueShield, United, etc.) which has paid for medical treatment often has the right to recover the amount of money that it spent on medical treatment. This right is called a "subrogation" right, which means that the health insurance company can “stand in the shoes” of the injured person and recover its money from the wrongdoer.
When a health insurance company pays medical bills, it normally does not pay dollar-for-dollar but instead pays a percentage. It is that lesser percentage (for example $200.00 on a $1000.00 bill) that must be reimbursed. Normally, the health insurance company will negotiate with the injured person and will reduce the amount that it claims as subrogation by the amount of the attorney’s fee being paid by the injured person to his or her attorney. This makes sense as the injured person has hired an attorney to create a “pool” of money from which the health insurance company is reaching into and drawing from. So the health insurance company should have to pay its share of the attorney’s fee to create that. This has the effect of lowering the amount that the injured person must pay back to the health insurance company.
The law changed a number of years ago so that the Jury can now hear that the injured person has health insurance and how much the health insurance company actually paid. We will address this in a separate blog post, but we did want to alert you to this fact and to be watching for this blog post from us.
If you have been injured in a car wreck or truck wreck and would like to talk to us, we are always happy to schedule a free consultation with you.
