What Do You Do When Doctors Refuse to Treat After a Car Accident?
A car accident can range from a minor fender-bender to one that leaves you in pain and without a vehicle. Not only has your life been interrupted from its routine, but now you hurt and need to get treatment. Then this happens: You attempt to schedule an appointment with a doctor only to be told they don’t accept or treat victims of car accidents. Some people are even rejected by their own primary care physician, while others are rejected by the very doctors they were referred to after being treated in the emergency room. In our experience, we have seen injured individuals make the appointment, arrive to complete all the appropriate paperwork, be seated in a patient exam room to give their history to the medical assistant or office nurse only to literally be walked-out of the physician’s office and told they don’t treat victims of car accidents. Wasted time, wasted energy and you are still suffering.
It happens more than most people realize, but doctors everywhere are exercising their right to refuse service to victims of car accidents. Suggested reasoning ranges from delayed or denied reimbursement for services to the potential of the physician having to testify on behalf of their patient as to the extent of injuries, expected course of treatment, and causal relation between the wreck and injuries. Health insurance companies are generally bound to cover the patient’s medical expense, and have a sophisticated department or subcontractor that tracks the patient’s third party liability claim for reimbursement out of the recovery from the negligent or liability insurance company. Additionally, 95% cases settle before trial. Thus, the suggested reasoning does not appear to justify the zero tolerance against treating car accident victims with personal injuries. In the few instances when there have been issues of delay or denial, we worked with our clients, their health insurance company, and the provider to smooth out the process in correcting the delay or denial.
Unfortunately, there is no databank that exists that would allow patients to tap into that would provide a list of doctors who are willing to treat victims of car accidents. Alternatively, there is no similar list of those doctors who refuse to treat such victims.
You are left at square one, still hurting, and perhaps still without transportation. If you or a loved one finds yourself the victim of a car accident, speaking to a car accident attorney can be very useful and informative. The attorneys at The Law Offices of Reynolds & Reynolds, PLLC provide excellent and caring personal injury representation and are available to speak with you about your accident and injuries today.
