One of the most difficult situations a personal injury lawyer faces is when a case doesn’t provide any effective recovery to a client. Just as corporate lawyers struggle with busted deals, plaintiff’s attorneys struggle with the busted personal injury lawsuit, in which the settlement value (after legal fees and Medicare lien reimbursement) leaves nothing for the plaintiff.
There are a number of reasons why a personal injury case may play out this way. It could be that your client was in an auto or personal injury accident and the defendant turns out have a minimal policy or worse is uninsured and judgment proof, which potentially leaves you only with recourse to a minimal recovery against defendant; or the plaintiff’s own SUM insurance policy or even worse MVIAC. With the cost of health care ever increasing and Medicare increasingly vigilant about asserting its reimbursement rights, it’s easy to see how that could leave a plaintiff with nothing to show for your efforts. Unfortunately, this is a scenario that’s occurring with increasing frequency whether your client is a Medicare beneficiary at age 65 or older or they receive SSD which forces them into Medicare.
