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March 01, 2020
- Car Accidents
What is Med Pay Coverage Under Auto Policy and How to Maximize it
Continuing with our discussion about medical expenses, I want to talk today about something else people ask us about all the time and that is what’s med pay coverage under an auto policy, and how do I best utilize the med pay coverage to my benefit. Med pay coverage is a coverage that’s pretty typical under your own insurance policy and it’s typically about five thousand dollars, it can be much more but the most common amount of med pay coverage we see is five thousand dollars.
Med pay coverage again is under your own auto policy, last time you remember we were discussing a very simple example of a case where we recovered nine thousand dollars for a client, we take our fee of one third of three thousand, leaves the client with six thousand gross proceeds recovery, and the client has submitted their bill as it is very important to do, submits their ER bill to their own health insurance company, Blue Cross, who pays three thousand. Now let’s say for instance, Blue Cross, instead of paying three thousand, they pay two thousand and leaves a one-thousand-dollar balance. Let’s say it’s a copay, deductible, non-covered items, whatever it is, there’s something that the patient or the client owes after the bill has gone through their health insurance coverage, now what you want to do with that remaining balance is submit it to your own auto insurance carrier under your med pay coverage, they will pay a dollar for dollar, and then you will have all of your expenses paid at the outset so they aren’t hanging on your back.
I think of a med pay coverage as sort of a mini health insurance policy that covers people in your car and incidentally med pay does for that coverage to be available to people in your car, it doesn’t depend on fault, so anybody injured in your car, there’s a separate limit of your med pay coverage that applies to them, that is available to them, but the key is to use it to your best advantage which is submit your bills first to your health insurance company and then any deductibles, copays, non-covered items use your med pay for that. That’s the way it works to your best advantage. Stay safe and be well.
