Should Kentucky car accident victims use their personal health insurance to pay their medical bills for the treatment they receive for injuries they sustained in an automobile accident? This is a question frequently asked by clients.
· Do I Give my health insurance card to my doctors?
· Why should my car insurance pay for my medical bills from an automobile accident that wasn’t my fault?
· Isn’t it the at-fault cars’ insurance company that should have to pay?
In other words should they use their health insurance to pay for their treatment from a car accident? The answer is no and yes. Why No? Your first and primary insurance in a car accident in Kentucky is your Personal Injury Protection or PIP benefits. Your own car insurance will pay the first $10,000.00 of medical bills for treatment from a car accident under most circumstances.
The “yes” comes after this $10,000.00 amount is fully paid or exhausted. You can then use your health insurance. Your health insurance will pay the medical bills from this point on. The confusing part and what some consider the bad part about this is there’s something called subrogation. Ninety percent of all health insurance plans require you to reimburse the health insurance carrier for anything they pay toward the treatment of injuries sustained in an automobile accident. Federal ERISA laws cover this area. It is a very specialized area of law and would require pages to fully explain. Your health insurance company generally entitled to reimbursement, and they can recover what was paid out under most circumstances.
If there is a requirement to pay your health insurance company why should use your health insurance to pay the bills from your car wreck case? The answer is twofold. One is to make sure that you get the treatment you need. The second is that they pay at a reduced rate, which ultimately saves you money. Realize that you will have to reimburse them out of the proceeds of your accident case, but only what is paid.
There are some good points for the Kentucky accident victim. When a health insurance company pays a bill they will pay the provider the agreed upon price for any treatment. In other words, they will pay only a portion of the charge. You only have to reimburse the health insurance company what they have paid, not the total amount of the bill. Usually this amount will be discounted even further at the time of payment by you.
You are also responsible to pay any co-pays or deductibles to the health care provider, unless you can work out other arrangements with your doctor. You will eventually be reimbursed but that may be several months or even years later when your accident case is settled.
The bottom line is you should use your health insurance to pay your medical bills once your PIP benefits have been exhausted. Your health insurance is secondary insurance. This allows you to get the treatment you need without being hassled by bill collectors for payment.



