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Today’s video tip is about a young man who was crossing the street, hit by a car, and
how Medicare destroyed his lawsuit. Let’s take a look. The driver of this car had a
limited insurance policy which meant if we brought a lawsuit, we were only able to recover
the maximum amount of money that this driver had. The only other option that we could do
is if we went after the driver personally and this driver had no additional assets and
no additional monies. So we were limited to the insurance policy. Now here’s where Medicare
stepped and said, “Hey. We paid for all of this young man’s medical care and treatment
while he was in the hospital for three, three and a half weeks. And now that you are seeking
compensation from the person who actually caused his injuries, we want you to pay us
back all the money that we paid out.” Wow. The problem was the available insurance was
much less than what Medicare wanted paid back. So what happened? Well, what happened was
that I was able to negotiate with Medicare to accept the reduced amount – in fact,
it was significantly reduced. The problem was it literally wiped out all of the money
that this man was going to get for the injuries that he suffered as a result from being involved
in this accident. And Medicare – while mindful of the fact that they were going to be taking
away of this young man’s compensation – never the less said “By law we are entitled to
recover this money that you’re getting from the person who caused the accident, regardless
of whether this man winds up with any compensation on his own.” And that’s exactly what they
did. They took all of the available money that this gentleman was going to get, and
had we known this at the beginning – at the outset – I would have recommended to
this family and this young man not to go ahead with the lawsuit process and not to try and
resolve this case because it’s unlikely that they’ll actually recover any money.
And that’s it for today’s video tip about how Medicare can ruin your accident case.
I’m Gerry Oginski. I want to thank you for joining me. Have a great day!