So you go to the hospital, what do you do next? You have health insurance. You don’t have auto insurance. Let’s say you have health insurance but go to the hospital or you go to a primary care doctor, or something like that. You could use your health insurance, if you have health insurance, there’s pros and cons with using your health insurance. The pro is, if the hospital bill is, let’s say $10,000 and I’m making up numbers here, but they have a health insurance rate meaning that the health insurance has a pre-negotiated rate with that hospital to reduce the rate, so if you give them your health insurance information, they have to reduce that $10,000 bill to whatever the negotiated rate may be.
So let’s say, for example, the negotiated rate is $1,500. Instead of paying $10,000, your health insurance is paying $1,500. At the end of the settlement, we have to reimburse your health insurance back, it’s called subrogation. We have to reimburse them back $1,500, but your hospital bill’s paid off. On the other flip side of it, if you did not use your health insurance or do not have insurance, they want their full $10,000. So we have to reimburse them back the $10,000. Florida’s a no-fault state, your auto insurance covers up to $10,000 in medical coverages, but there’s usually a percentage that’s not covered and deductible.
For the hospitals, they always want all their money upfront, not upfront but at the settlement. So if you have health insurance, it’s really important, use your health insurance wherever you can, especially when big-ticket items like the hospital, and then at the end of the settlement we’ll work on negotiating those bills, that way we can pay off the health insurance lean, because the health insurance wants their money back, because they’re paying for something that wasn’t accident-related, sorry paying for something that wasn’t health-related, but was accident-related. If you have any questions on this, feel free to give us a call, 813 421 3411.
(Transcript from the video, transcribed but not reviewed)
