Hi guys. Matt Clendenin here. I recently got out of a client appointment for one of their doctors and I figured this would be a good time to talk about medical liens or doctor liens. Many people have heard of a mechanic's lien or a lien on someone's property. This is the same thing. There's a contract that promises to pay your doctor from the settlement later. So there's a lot of pros and cons to liens and I feel like it's a misunderstood issue for personal injury law. And it's something that I always counsel my clients on so that they can make the best decision. 

So first off, pros and cons. What's a pro? Well, no healthcare, no problem. With a lien, if you go to a doctor and the doctor agrees to take the lien, that means you're not going to get a bill. You're not going to have to deal with a crazy bill from health insurance and you're not going to have to pay anything out of pocket. Sometimes my clients don't have health insurance, so they have to use liens in order to get treatment. Other times they have health insurance, but there's a huge deductible. Or if they have Kaiser, there's lots of copays. And so a medical lien lets you get treatment without having to pay anything out of pocket. So that's a huge pro. Another pro is you're getting top class private doctor care. The doctors that are doing liens, are not your run in the mill folks. 

At larger organizations, these are private medical groups. They give you concierge service. You can get into an appointment the same day you call them. Everything is top notch service. So that's another pro. A third pro is that these doctors are very familiar with the personal injury lawsuit process. They're gonna help, they're going to work with you. Um, they know how to take detailed records that are going to help your case as opposed to some larger medical groups like Kaiser or sharp. Their doctors are actually prohibited from helping you. They're not allowed to help you. Um, and so having doctors that are going to fight for you in your legal case as well as take care of your health, that's a third, very important positive. However, it's not all sunshine and roses. There is a big drawback to medical needs and that is that they are very expensive. 

Think about it. You're not just paying a healthcare premium and you're not paying your medical bill when you actually get the treatment. You're paying it maybe years later out of a settlement. So the doctor who gave you top notch care, who assisted in your and who waited for two years to get paid for his medical treatment, that doctor is going to expect to get paid a lot more than a regular doctor. I like to give people an example. I had a recent case with a spinal fusion. At Kaiser or Sharpe, they're going to pay about $50,000 to $70,000 for that treatment. Right? You're going to get a crazy bill in the middle for 250,000, but your private health insurance is going to pay about $50,000 to $70,000 for that procedure. Medicare is only going to pay about $30,000 or $40,000 for that procedure. They pay a lot less. 

However, if you were to do that on a lien, you're going to owe the full amount of that bill, the full two 50. Obviously that's much more expensive. Now at the end of the case, that bill gets paid off by yourself on that, but you have to come to grips with the fact that it's a huge bill. Now, of course it's a little bit of robbing Peter to pay Paul because if you have a $250,000 bill, we're going to ask for another $250,000 from your personal injury case. So your bill's a lot higher, but your settlement is going to be higher at the same time. A big chunk of your settlement has to go to pay those bills off. So it's a little bit of balancing, but a big negative is that you're going to end up at the end of the day paying a lot more for your medical treatment on a lien rather than if you use private health insurance. 

So hopefully that makes sense. Those are some of the pros and cons. The big take home message is that if you work with a lawyer, they can help you get medical care even if you don't have healthcare or if you don't have money to pay for your deductible. That's through attorney liens. Hopefully that makes sense. You're welcome to reach out. I always go through this with my clients. It's a difficult issue to understand. Every case is different. Feel free to give me a shout out or ask any questions. Take care guys