Personal Injury Attorney, Ben Schwartz, answers a viewer question: “Do I have to pay my health insurance back from a personal injury settlement?” The answers depends on if your health insurance policy has a subrogation provision.

Do I Have To Pay My Health Insurance Back From A Personal Injury Settlement?

Hi, I’m Attorney Ben Schwartz,

Today we are going to answer a viewer question from Cassandra in Salisbury, Maryland. Cassandra wrote in and said, “I was injured in a car accident and my health insurance paid for my surgery. When I get a settlement from the at-fault driver’s insurance company, do I have to pay my health insurance back?” The answer is, it depends. You need an attorney to review this question, because the attorney can look at the plan documents for your health insurer and see if there is what is called a subrogation provision in the health insurance policy.

Basically, the word of the day, subrogation means that once the health insurer has paid out some money to pay for your medical care, they have a right to get paid back from your personal injury claim. If there is a subrogation provision in the health insurance policy then yes, they may have a right to get paid back.

Also, if the health insurance is Medicare or Medicaid insurance, they probably have a statutory right to subrogate against your liability claim to get paid back from your personal injury claim. It is a question that I cannot answer in video format, other than to give some broad general information about health insurance subrogation. If you want to get a specific answer to the specific question, you need the attorney handling your personal injury case to essentially research it and give you a straight answer and let you know what your legal rights are in your specific situation, with your specific health insurer, and your specific health insurance claim.

I’m Attorney Ben Schwartz, I hope this video is something that you found interesting and informative. Hopefully you understand a little bit more about the way things work in personal injury cases and in the law. After watching this video, if you have questions for me that you would like me to answer in video format please send me an e-mail below.

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