Medical Payments in Personal Injury Cases

Ed Van Dorn

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I just got a call from my partner who is on trial over in the federal district court. The lawyers for the insurance company are making all kinds of noise about medicaid paying the medical bills and they shouldn't have to, etc. He asked me to write up some closing comments he might share with the jury on this issue. And I thought I might share some of those comments with you.

If you are covered by medical insurance, medicaid or some other third party who has paid your medical bills for injuries caused by negligence, the law says that between you and the person who caused those injuries the one who should get the benefit is you, not the negligent party.

This is called the collateral source rule. It recognizes that if you have medical insurance or some other source of medical payments, then you probably earned that coverage either through your job or paying premiums out of your pocket. So if the defendant is excused from paying your medical bills because someone else did then the defendant is benefitting from what you earned or paid for, not you. Another reason the law recognizes the collatoral source rule is that many times, especially with medicare, you the injured party will have to repay to Medicare the bills they paid out of the proceeds of your recovery. This is known as a medical lien. So recognizing this the law says that the defendant must pay all reasonable medical bills related to the injury caused by negligence.

Not all states interpret the collateral source rule the same way. We practice mostly in New Hampshire and Vermont and know this is how those states treat this rule. This also points out another reason why its so important to obtain the services of an experienced law firm to handle your personal injury claim.