After a Douglasville car accident, you can recover compensation from the fault party. This is because Georgia is a fault-based accident state. Therefore, the responsible party covers the victim’s accident losses. One major type of compensation you’ll receive is medical bills. Recovering the costs of medical treatment is crucial since you must treat your wounds.
However, it’s also vital to know whether an insurance company can exclude some medical bills. If they can, what’s the rationale behind such refusal to pay such damages? All these questions point to the need for a Douglasville car accident lawyer. A skilled attorney would have sufficient experience to know which medical bills you deserve. Similarly, they’d know if an insurer is wrongly denying compensation.
What Medical Bills Do Insurers Pay?
Generally, insurance companies would pay all reasonable and necessary medical bills. This would include the costs of diagnosis and treatment of your accident injuries. “Reasonable” and “necessary” bills are objective concepts. Usually, too, what’s reasonable is apparent to everyone.
For example, medical bills for orthopedic surgery after a broken leg are necessary. However, medical personnel and other people may dispute some fine details. If, for instance, you went to a hospital that’s beyond your budget, that may be unreasonable. However, if it was an emergency, then it becomes necessary. This new change is because delay could be dangerous.
Other disputable details include:
- Exact surgical procedures and methods
- Prescription medications
- Extra medical visits from your doctor
- Risky or untested medical procedures
If an insurance company proves some medical bills were unreasonable or unnecessary, they can refuse to pay them.
Medical Bills Insurance Companies Consider Reasonable
Medical bills include more than the exact cost of treatment. Instead, it consists of every other money spent on your path to injury recovery. Therefore, such medical expenses would include:
- Costs of ambulance transportation from the accident scene
- Surgical bills
- Cost of physician-recommended physical therapy
- Costs of medical diagnostic tests such as x-rays
- Future medical transportation bills
- Hospital admission bills
- Cost of medical devices
- Pharmaceutical bills
This list isn’t exhaustive. So, if your attorney can prove that a medical expense was reasonable, you can recover the cost.
Medical Bills Insurance Companies Exclude From Compensation Packages
Now, let’s look at some bills insurance companies usually exclude from settlement payouts. They include the medical bills for:
- Pre-existing injuries
- Self-inflicted wounds
- Injuries from third parties
- Injuries aggravated by disobeying your doctor’s orders
- Conditions worsened by seeking medical attention late
- Medical bills beyond the insurance policy
Recovering compensation for the above items is often challenging. This is because you’re partly responsible for these bills’ existence. That is, they aren’t the direct consequence of the accident.
What About Future Medical Bills?
Many times, accident injuries have future implications. This means that you’d need future medical attention. For example, you’ll require future medical care if you suffer a permanent injury or disability. First, however, you’d still need to establish that these future medical bills are reasonable and necessary.
This requirement can be pretty straightforward. You only have to show that other people with your condition require such treatment. Notably, too, calculating the cost of future medical treatment is difficult. Such difficulty is because there’s no foolproof method for predicting future bills.
So, you’ll need medical experts to evaluate your injury and your treatment costs. An experienced attorney should have the contacts of these relevant professionals. Therefore, this is another reason to hire a Douglasville lawyer.
How Can I Help My Claim for Medical Bills?
Indeed, you can improve your chances of recovering medical bills. Firstly though, you’d have to seek medical attention immediately after an accident. This urgency ensures that a doctor links your wound to the mishap. Furthermore, it provides documentation of your injury. Finally, it’d also be best to secure your medical records and hospital receipts. The financial receipts will come in handy when assigning dollar amounts to your compensation claim.
Douglasville Car Accident Lawyers Can Get You the Maximum Medical Compensation
Have you survived a Douglasville accident with injuries? Do you think the insurance company is wrongly denying you some medical bills? If you think so, you can recover everything you deserve from the insurer. First, however, you’ll need excellent Douglasville car accident lawyers.
Attorneys are crucial at this stage because you must prove the insurer’s bad faith. Our lawyers at the Law Office of John B. Jackson are best suited for this role. This is because we’ve had extensive dealings with insurance companies. Consequently, we can easily spot insurance foul play. If you call us today, we can ensure the insurer pays your maximum medical bills.
