Should I accept their offer – it means I pocket some of the money?!
I’m done treating..they’re going to pay all my bills and give me $3,000!!
Your getting screwed! When they say they are going to pay your bills, what they mean is they are going to repay your health insurance company’s subrogation. Here’s where you get snookered:
Let’s say you have bills that BCBS has paid under your health insurance. BCBS doesn’t pay the entire amount of a bill. Check your EOB for something like the ER bill. The bill is $8,000…BCBS pays $1,800…the balance is “contractually adjusted”. That means it goes away. Under Tennessee law, you are entitled to be paid for the medical expenses you incur – the full bill($8k) – but you only have to pay back BCBS what they paid ($1.8k). You get to pocket the difference($6.2k!!). This is one of the only favorable things left in Tennessee law for injured folks. Let the car insurance company “pay your bills” and they just worked you out of over $6,000….This is called the Collateral Source rule and Tennessee recently had a huge fight in the courts to keep this law.
