Automotive Insurance coverage Could Be Why You are Denied Medical Care After Crash

After crashing her automobile, teenager Frankie Prepare dinner was denied help at an pressing care facility in Roma, GA. Why? Her automotive insurance coverage, NPR studies.

Whereas it might sound intuitive that your medical insurance ought to cowl all issues well being, there are literally some caveats. When you maintain an accident behind the wheel or in your house, your automotive or residence insurance coverage may very well be chargeable for the prices of your medical payments.

Right here’s the scenario:

“’We don’t take third-party insurance coverage,’” Russell [Cook, Frankie’s father] says the receptionist at Atrium Well being Floyd Pressing Care Rome informed him, although he wasn’t positive what she meant. “She informed me, like, thrice.”

The Cooks had been instructed to move to an emergency room, which by regulation should see all sufferers, no matter whether or not or not they’re insured. Medical doctors on the emergency room gave Frankie Prepare dinner a cursory examination and two CT scans earlier than prescribing relaxation and Tylenol. Afterward, the Prepare dinner household acquired a invoice for her care that totaled $17,005.

So, what occurred right here? NPR explains:

Lou Ellen Horwitz, CEO of the Pressing Care Affiliation, says it’s a fairly normal coverage for pressing care facilities to not deal with accidents that consequence from automobile crashes, even minor ones. “Typically, as a rule, they don’t maintain automobile accident victims whatever the extent of their accidents, as a result of it will undergo that auto insurance coverage claims course of earlier than the supplier will get paid,” she says.

Horwitz says pressing care facilities — even ones owned by huge well being programs — typically function on skinny margins and might’t wait months and months for an auto insurance coverage firm to pay out a declare. She says “sadly” folks are likely to study such insurance policies once they present up anticipating care.

After 16 months that included a authorized dispute to take away duplicate expenses and the household’s well being supplier, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Protect, stepped as much as pay among the invoice, the Cooks had been lastly left with a cost of $1,042.

Most individuals don’t find out about these insurance coverage insurance policies till they’re pressured to seek out out the exhausting approach, just like the Cooks. So, use their instance to analysis what your insurance coverage scenario seems to be like and have a care plan prepared must you be concerned in a crash.