If you already have retained a Marietta or Gwinnett personal injury lawyer, your lawyer will go over your medical bills and your payment options with you. Generally, medical bills following a collision can be paid in any of the following ways:

1. Health insurance through your employer.
2. Individual health insurance that you pay for.
3. Health insurance through your spouse’s employer.
4. Health insurance through your parents, if you are under age 26.
5. Medical payments insurance coverage through your auto policy if you were driving your car at the time of the incident. This is commonly known as “medpay.” Medpay car insurance coverage is insurance that covers the medical costs that incur as a result of your auto accident. (At Braun & Ree, this is our preferred method of getting your medical bills paid, if it is available.)
6. Medical payments insurance coverage through the driver’s auto policy if you were a passenger in the policyholder’s car.
7. Your own personal funds if you were not insured at the time of the incident.
8. Workers’ compensation insurance if your injury occurred while you were working within the scope of your employment and the injury occurred as a result of your work.
9. The liability insurance coverage for the persons or entities that caused your injuries. Medical payments through this type of insurance are usually paid at the time of settlement, rather than the time you incur the bills.
10. An attorney lien, if that option is offered by the medical provider.
11. Other possible sources.

Depending on the facts of your case, your medical bills may be covered by one or more of the sources listed above. If no insurance coverage is available, you and your Marietta or Gwinnett personal injury lawyer should save your bills and keep good records, so that your bills can be paid at a later date when and if your case settles. If your case does settle, your Marietta injury lawyer is obligated by law to pay any outstanding medical balances out of the settlement received. Moreover, if you have health insurance and your insurance has paid for treatment related to the accident, your insurance company may have a right to reimbursement from the proceeds of your settlement. This right to reimbursement will depend on whether the insurance company is or is not self-funded.

As you can see from this brief overview, there is no single means of getting your medical bills paid. Sorting through all these options can be an overwhelming and confusing task. If you are not currently represented by an attorney, the experienced Gwinnett and Marietta personal injury lawyers at Braun & Ree, LLP, can help. Please use the Free Case Evaluation form on this page to tell us about your situation, or call or email us directly.

In our work as Marietta and Gwinnett personal injury attorneys, we advise all of our clients that one of their most important responsibilities is to keep complete and accurate records of their medical bills. Here are some ways you can do that:

1. Always get a bill or receipt.
   Every time you visit a doctor, physical therapist, specialist, hospital or any other healthcare provider or facility, make sure you ask for and get a medical bill or receipt.
2. Keep your prescription receipts.
   Keep copies of your prescription receipts and receipts for medications or products that you purchase to treat your injury.
3. Keep a separate detailed record of your medical-related expenses.
   Maintain a record of the dates of each medical service or medication purchase, the amount charged, and how the bill was paid if it was paid (e.g., out-of-pocket expense, insurance). You may keep this record in the form of a chart or calendar or any other format that you can easily maintain and readily update. This record of medical bills incurred as a result of your injury will crucial to your case and the amount you will be able to recover.
4. Give your lawyer a copy of all medical or prescription bills or receipts related to your injury.
   In order for you to receive fair compensation in line with what your case is actually worth, your Marietta personal injury lawyers must have copies of all your medical bills, as well as a copy of the record of medical-related expenses you created. Even though some healthcare providers may send copies of bills directly to your lawyer, it is good practice for you to send copies to your lawyer, too. This way, the providers’ bills can be cross-checked with your bills and your record of expenses, to ensure that nothing is missed.
5. Keep copies of medical bills even if a health insurance company paid them.
   The same rules apply to medical bills processed by an insurer or employer. Keep copies of these bills and give copies to your Marietta or Gwinnett personal injury attorney.

Have more questions? Contact the experienced Gwinnett and Marietta personal injury attorneys at Braun & Ree, LLP today for a free consultation. Use the Free Case Evaluation form on this page to tell us about your situation or, if you prefer, call or email us directly.

If you have been injured in an auto collision, you may be eligible for financial recovery for your medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering. A Marietta auto collision attorney may be able to help you, but whether he or she decides to take your case will depend on several factors. Some of those factors include:

The date of the incident: It is important that you contact a Marietta personal injury attorney as soon after the incident as you can. If too much time has elapsed between the incident and when you contact an attorney, the statute of limitations – the legal time period within which to file a lawsuit — may run out, and you will be unable to sue. If you hire a Marietta auto collision attorney soon, he or she will ensure that the case is handled properly, and avoid mistakes that you might make if you try to handle the case yourself.

Treatment of your injuries: If you claim you suffered injuries, but have not seen a doctor or physician about them, the opposing insurance adjuster, the opposing attorney, and a jury will suspect you may be exaggerating the true extent of your injuries. A Marietta personal injury attorney will want to hear you explain your injuries in your own words. By the same token, your attorney will want to know your current condition and how well you are recovering. Do you expect to be permanently disabled and need ongoing care, or has your condition stabilized?

Witnesses: If there are witnesses who saw and can testify about the incident, a Marietta personal injury attorney will want to interview them soon.

How did it happen: This question is very important when it comes to determining liability, and an attorney will expect you to give clear and detailed answers to any questions regarding the nature and circumstances of the incident.

For a more detailed evaluation regarding your specific case, contact Marietta and Gwinnett auto collision attorneys Braun & Ree, LLP. Please use the form on this page to tell us about your situation or call or email us directly.

If you have been involved in an incident resulting in a serious injury, you may be wondering if you have grounds for a personal injury lawsuit and, if so, what your chances of success are. An experienced Marietta personal injury attorney can help you decide if you have a case and explain the process of filing and prosecuting a lawsuit.

Generally speaking, if your Gwinnett or Marietta personal injury attorney decides to take your case, you will become part of a litigation team and be expected to perform several duties to help your attorney move your case forward. These duties include sitting for a deposition (sworn testimony) and providing written answers to interrogatories (questions) asked by the opposing side. Mainly, you will be expected to keep in regular contact with your attorney and inform him or her of changes in your contact information, your work status,  and any changes to your medical condition. If your attorney contacts you, by mail or phone, make sure to respond promptly; make time to prepare and send any documents your attorney requests. If you incur medical expenses relating to your injury or if you have to take time off work, keep documentation of all these expenses and lost income and report it to your lawyer. Continue to work as much as you are able, and try not to get confrontational or hostile with your employer. Finally, it is important that you do not engage in any criminal activity, such as shoplifting or drunk driving, which can be used in court to portray you as an unreliable or dishonest person.

If your Marietta personal injury attorney decides that it is necessary to file a lawsuit in your case, you may incur additional expenses. The process of pursuing a lawsuit is difficult and time-consuming, and requires a great deal of work by your attorney and his or her associates and support staff, including document preparation, depositions, legal research and brief preparation, interviews with witnesses and doctors, and correspondence with opposing counsel. Your attorney should review all of these potential expenses with you if or when litigation becomes necessary.

If you have questions about the viability of your case, the experienced Marietta or Gwinnett personal injury attorneys at Braun & Ree, LLP can help.  Please use the form on this page to tell us about your situation, or call or email us directly.

Deposition is one of the last stages of the discovery process before your Marietta personal injury case goes to trial. During deposition, you will be required to testify under oath. This will help the defense attorney in your case determine how you will come across in your testimony at trial; if you perform well, a higher settlement offer could be made. Also, anything you say at your deposition can be used to impeach you at trial if you later testify to something inconsistent with your deposition testimony.

Many depositions are videotaped, and there are certain considerations that must be made for a videotaped deposition versus one that is not videotaped. In this article, Marietta personal injury attorney Michael Braun will explain some of these considerations.

Look at the Camera
The camera in a deposition will typically show only your head and shoulders. It will rarely show other people in the room, including the attorney who is questioning you. This can get boring for anyone watching the video, but this is especially so if you are looking off-screen the whole time. If you look directly into the camera, you will develop more of an intimacy with the person watching the video, and you will seem more trustworthy as a result.

This does not mean that you should not look at the attorney when listening to the question you are asked. It is important to pay careful attention so you answer exactly the question that is being answered—nothing more, nothing less. However, when it comes time to answer, be sure you are looking at the camera.

Sit Correctly
Because the videotape of your deposition will mostly be a “talking head” video, it can be kind of boring, and viewers may be easily distracted by things you do during your deposition testimony. If you are squirming in your chair or rocking in it, you will be distracting from the actual testimony you are giving. Think of how a television newscaster sits. They do not slouch or do distracting things with their hands. This is what you should strive to be like during your deposition.

For a free evaluation of your case, please contact the Georgia personal injury attorneys at Braun and Ree, LLP.

While they are not representative of the profession as a whole, there are more than a few less-than-scrupulous insurance adjusters out there who may try unfairly reduce your claim. Here, a Marietta personal injury lawyer will give you a list of some of the signs that you are dealing with such an adjuster.

1. The claims adjuster gives you an opinion letter from a personal injury attorney saying your claim is not worth very much.
If you think about it, this does not make too much sense. How could an attorney have enough information to make such an evaluation without ever having spoken with you? In fact, these letters are usually written by personal injury attorneys who have been misinformed or under-informed about your case and are making their assessment with those faulty facts. The adjuster can then use this letter to intimidate you.

2. The adjuster claims an expert has given a negative evaluation of your case.
This can be suspicious for the same reasons that an attorney’s letter can be suspicious. While the outright bribery of third-party experts is rare, some adjusters will get an unfavorable expert opinion simply by having many experts give tentative evaluations of your case and then hiring only those who seem to think you don’t have a case.

3. The adjuster leverages where you live against you.
If the insurance adjuster knows you live a substantial distance away from where your injury happened, he can conclude that in order to file a lawsuit against them, you would have think about taking time off work while the trial is occurring and spending a lot of money on lodging and travel expenses. He may offer a low settlement in hopes that you feel that litigating would be too inconvenient.

4. The adjuster insinuates that jurors would be unlikely to side with you for a reason unrelated to the case.
Truly unscrupulous adjusters might try to make you feel ashamed of your background, lifestyle, or social status. They may subtly try to convince you that you are a type of person that a jury would not feel much sympathy for. Do not fall for this; the court will take measures to select a reasonably impartial jury.

If you have any reason to suspect you are being lowballed or bullied by the insurance adjuster, do not hesitate to call Georgia personal injury attorneys at Braun and Ree, LLP, today for a free consultation.

In a personal injury case, the individual, people, or company that caused your injury is called the tortfeasor. Generally speaking, and especially if your case settles and does not go to trial, most of your contact will be with the insurance company responsible for covering the tortfeasor. If your case ends up going to trial instead of settling, then the tortfeasor will be referred to as the defendant, and you will be referred to as the plaintiff. While your Marietta personal injury lawyer will keep you informed as to the progress of your specific case, how the tortfeasor plays a role in the case is relatively standardized.

Right after the incident that caused your injury, the insurance company in charge of covering the tortfeasor contacted them about it. The appropriate insurance claims adjuster took statements and received reports from either the person or people who caused your injury or a representative of the company that is responsible for your injury. It is likely that the adjuster recorded these statements, so there probably are written reports or transcripts which could be of interest to your Marietta personal injury lawyer as evidence. After this initial investigation, there will probably be very little or no contact between the insurance company and the tortfeasors. Except in some medical malpractice cases, the insurance company’s representative will not update the tortfeasor with information about the progress of the case. Usually, the tortfeasors will continue their daily lives in the hopes that the case will simply be settled between your Marietta injury attorney and the insurance company without their involvement.

If that does not happen and the case goes from settlement negotiations to litigation, the tortfeasor’s insurance carrier will contact him again. This is because although the insurance company is hiring a lawyer and will likely be responsible for paying the settlement or verdict, they are doing the former on the tortfeasor’s behalf. In other words, the lawsuit is to be filed by your Marietta personal injury attorney against the tortfeasor, not the insurance company. The insurance company will then hire a Marietta lawyer to protect the tortfeasor. From this point on, the tortfeasor will be obliged to participate in the legal process of the lawsuit and to cooperate with the Marietta lawyer assigned.

The Georgia personal injury attorneys at Braun and Ree, LLP, can help to ensure that your injury case goes as successfully for you as possible. Fill out the form on this page for a consultation on your case.

One of the most important pieces of advice any Marietta personal injury attorney will give you is to always be wary of anything the insurance company asks you to sign—no insurance company, even your own, is on your side.

A great example of this is what insurance companies call medical authorization forms. At some point while making a personal injury claim, you will likely be asked by the other party’s insurance adjuster to sign this form.

Often, the adjuster will try to make this forms sound as innocuous as possible. He might tell you that the form allows the insurance companies to see your medical bills so they know what to pay you. He might tell you that the insurance company needs to see your medical records and reports from your doctor in order to authorize payment. He might also try to tell you that if you sign the form, they will request and track all of the necessary documents for you, saving you the trouble of requesting and maintaining the records yourself.

However, these medical authorizations forms are far from innocuous. They are often written in such a way that gives the insurance company full access to your medical records when signed, giving them the ability to look at records that have nothing to do with your injury. Not only does this form take away much of your personal privacy, it gives the insurance information that the insurance company can spin to argue that your injury was pre-existing, absolving them of liability.

You are NOT legally required to sign a medical authorization form in order to make an insurance claim. Make sure any authorization you give to the insurance company to check your medical records is limited to the records directly pertaining to your injury. Make sure that that the access you give expires after the claim is settled. Do not sign anything you have not read.

If you are making a personal injury claim and feel that you are being pressured by the insurance company into signing away your rights, call Braun and Ree, LLP, for a free consultation today.

In a personal injury case, handling medical bills can be stressful if you cannot pay them right away. In cases where you are waiting for the outcome of either a settlement or possible litigation, your Marietta injury lawyer may help you take certain steps to ensure that your bills are handled properly.

The insurance company for the tortfeasor (i.e. the party responsible for your injuries) will not automatically pay your medical bills as they occur for many reasons. One reason is the fear that you will make a large or unreasonable demand at the time of final settlement. That is, they do not want the costs of both your bills and defending the lawsuit that you would bring if you did not get the settlement offer you felt your served. Another possible reason is that most insurance companies want to settle a claim with a single sum of money. Handling your full settlement at once, including the amount of your medical bills, is far simpler and more cost-effective for them than paying multiple times.

If you are unable to cover the costs of your medical bills as they are incurred, most doctors, hospitals, and other medical professionals and facilities will wait until your case is resolved by out-of-court settlement or court verdict. While you are healing from your injuries, you should let your medical providers know as early as possible that you have neither the insurance coverage nor the financial means to pay your medical bills. In the case that you cannot cover your bills, you will probably be made to sign a subrogation or lien form. That form enables your Marietta injury attorney to hold back enough money to cover the costs of your medical bills directly from the insurance settlement or verdict money.

Your Marietta injury attorney, then, will be the one to ensure that your medical care providers are paid and your bills are all covered. In addition to the provisions made by your subrogation or lien form, most Marietta injury lawyers have a policy where they withhold funds from your settlement or verdict in order to pay back medical facilities and professionals. If you have been injured and wish to seek legal help to cover your medical bills and other injury-related expenses, Georgia personal injury attorneys Braun and Ree, LLP, may be able to help. Call today for a free case evaluation.

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