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How to Submit your Medical Bills

"How to Collect, Organize and Submit your medical bills-Costly Mistakes People Make"

If you are injured in an auto accident, at some point you will need to submit your bills to be paid to an insurance carrier and you will need to submit them as part of the value of your claim to a different insurance carrier. Here are some tips and advice on how to avoid mistakes on this very important process.

  1. Whenever you are submitting medical bills to your insurance company to pay under the no-fault provision, always make sure your bills are for treatment for the accident and not an unrelated medical problem. One way you can assure this gets done right is if you ask your doctor's office administrator to be sure to use billing using HCFA forms which are forms that comply with universally accepted coding. This coding will then tell the insurance company that the injury being treated is accident related. Don't rely on your doctor's office to know this-you must ask.
  1. Be sure that you tell your doctor's office that the bills need to be paid by your no-fault insurance carrier first and then your health insurance carrier second and not to submit them to the health insurance carrier until you get a letter telling you that your PIP medical benefits have been exhausted. If you submit the bills to the wrong insurance company that will delay your case and the payments on the medical bills.

3. Be sure that medical bills are submitted to your health insurance after you exhaust your PIP medical benefits. Failure to submit your bills to be paid by the appropriate insurance carrier will mean that your bills will go to collection and create bigger headaches for you.

4 Collecting your medical bills from all of your health care providers usually involves knowing the correct billing address for your health care provider and being sure that you have all of your bills from that provider. To be sure you have all of the bills, you must know all of the treatment dates and whether your health care provider used any outside services to do some of your medical procedures. Talk to the doctor's office administrator or billing department and ask them if there are any services you had at their office or clinic or hospital that is billed thru any other company. Many tests are performed by outside companies such as MRI's and some blood work

so be sure to get these bills not just your doctor's office bills. Emergency Rooms often contract with outside sources such as ER Physician's groups to perform their work and that will result in a separate billing that must be requested.

5 When you organize your bills to be submitted to the insurance company for settlement, don't make them fish for bills. Organize them by doctor or hospital and try to put them in chronological order. The clearer the picture you can paint for the insurance company the more fair your settlement should be. Tab each health care provider's set of billings separately so that they can be accessed easily by anyone. It goes without saying that when you organize your billings, you should also make a copy for your own records. Also, avoid duplication of billings sent in the final set of billings you are using to try to settle your case.

6 Never use a doctor's office who won't do billing using HCFA and will only take cash or personal funds as these types of doctors offices will not be able to support your case with the appropriate documentation and even if they have provided good medical services, it will not likely to be considered as part of your injury case.

7 Submit your bills as you incur them to the liability carrier so that they can see the value of your billings and thus part of the value of the whole claim. If the liability insurance carrier for the person that caused your accident is kept up to date on the seriousness of your injuries and mounting bills, they will be in a better position to settle your case sooner than later. Waiting to make the submittal of the billings will slow that process at the end of the case. However, don't sign any release for the insurance company without advice of counsel.

Properly submitting your billings is a time consuming and detailed process that you can handle on your own. However, if you want to be assured that it is done efficiently and effectively you should probably consult a lawyer who is familiar with all of the necessary procedures and processes to accomplish this very important process in you personal injury auto accident injury case.


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