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There are many changes each year to laws and statutes that affect or can affect all of us. In terms of a hospital or medical facility, when there is a case involving personal injury or motor vehicle accidents the details can be very hard to identify with. There aren’t necessarily new broadcasts everyday to inform the faculty in terms they can interpret just how the changes can concern them.
Auto insurance companies have long been known to challenge and confuse the medical community with regards to what it will and will not reimburse, how much it will reimburse, and so forth. Not every hospital has on staff a full time attorney that can alert them to statute changes allowing them to possibly and finally gain back what they’ve had to sacrifice. Why does any of this matter to Florida hospitals and how does it ultimately affect the surrounding communities?
Effective January 15, 2008, the Florida No-Fault Statutes also known as the PIP statute was amended. The amendment created a lot of uncertainty with regards to reimbursing Florida Medical Providers.
Specifically, there are two sections of the amended statute which can create confusion on exactly how much Florida hospitals and other Emergency Service providers should be reimbursed under the new No-Fault/PIP Statutes. Florida Insurance companies have taken the biased approach that the statute allows for reductions, while Florida hospitals have yet to challenge the reductions, until now. Florida hospitals are realizing they can step up and begin collecting the fees that are owed to them, thus being able to afford to put that money back into their system and improve the quality of care they can offer. When Statutes are in conflict, attorneys look to case law. When there is no existing case law, these cases are called Cases of First Impression. When litigating cases of first impression, one should review the legislative intent when enacting the Statute to determine the true intention of the law. Some attorneys have studied the legislative intent and the message is very clear “Exempt Hospitals from Fee Schedules”.
Good MVA Attorneys recognize that hospitals are not always paying enough attention to the Motor Vehicle Accident/PIP Claims and their respective reimbursements. PIP reimbursements can be significantly higher than Health Insurance, Medicare and Self-Pay and can be recovered even up to five years after being written off. Rather than pursuing what they are legally entitled to, hospitals everywhere have historically been content with anything more than what they would receive from an alternate carrier. Better is not always best and the “something is better than nothing” mentality can handicap an institution and hold it back from moving ahead in medical technology. Better reimbursements do not equal best reimbursements and better practices do not equal best practices. So, how do you qualify an MVA Attorney if you’re in this situation and separate one from the other? The key is in the informed selection.
Finding an attorney that does not strive for their Clients to be “better” at collecting Third Party Liability (“TPL”) reimbursements, a qualified MVA Attorney will in fact strive for you to become the best at recovering these debts and passion is the key in any worthwhile endeavor. If the attorney is not passionate and cannot come armed with a fire that’s burning for this, the end result will in fact lose its steam thus returning nothing to the hospital but frustration.
Research and locate an attorney that carries with him references, living examples of the good that’s come out of the services rendered. When a hospital can recover what is theirs, it can put the reimbursements back into programs, services, and staff where it was needed to begin with. MVA Attorneys don’t need to cost the hospital and arm and a leg either, it is possible and most wise to seek out representation that can collect and recover unpaid third party liability reimbursements, personal injury and motor vehicle claims for the organization and build the firm’s fees into the reimbursements. The hospital does not have to sacrifice its revenue for the money it was supposed to have received in the first place. Trauma centers, ambulance companies, and hospitals alike can now take a quick glance into their PIP/MVA “un-received” receivables and capture an idea of just how much revenue can be returned to their systems. Beginning with a good plan is just that, the beginning. If hospitals everywhere could embrace the services of the right PIP/MVA attorney recuperate the costs they front in these cases, the communities in which these medical facilities exist will soon see improvement. It takes only a few glimpses into a hospitals past by the right person to shine a light on a positive road ahead during a more negative time in history. Now more than ever individuals and corporations alike are taking control and holding other accountable and now more than ever its important to look everywhere for solutions. Getting a second opinion doesn’t just have to be what you get from your doctor any longer.
