New York State No-Fault law provides that if you are injured in a car accident (only car accidents), you cannot file a lawsuit unless you have a serious injury. The No-Fault statute states that a fracture is a serious injury but provides very difficult to interpret language to determine whether other injuries are serious.

This has led to recent court decisions requiring doctors to treat a car accident patient in a manner to prepare for a lawsuit, beginning with the first medical examination. Instead of simply providing proper medical care, the courts have required doctors not only to prepare for a lawsuit but also to know how to do that.

It is not surprising that doctors rarely knew that they even had to perform examinations in a certain way for lawsuits. I have not found any doctors aware of the court decisions until I told them.

Often, people injured in a car accident call a lawyer weeks or months later and did not have the benefit of a lawyer who could advise the treating doctor. It is also not surprising that doctors did not know what to do and when told, they often didn’t want to cooperate.

Consequently, cases serious enough to require surgery but without a broken bone have been dismissed by the courts because they were not proved to be serious. Because cases were getting dismissed, insurance companies stopped settling car accident cases. The result is that many lawyers stopped taking car accident cases.

If you were injured in a car accident within the last three years and could not find a lawyer interested in representing you, you should talk to a lawyer again. If you have a current car accident lawsuit, your lawsuit just got a lot better. There is now very good news for car accident victims.

The New York State Court of Appeals in the case Perl v. Meher said that doctors no longer need to treat car accident patients for lawsuits and can once again return to practicing medicine. Now, preparation for a lawsuit can be done much later and after a lawyer has been retained.

No-Fault Lost Wage Payments

The New York Mandatory Personal Injury Protection coverage provides a maximum lost wage payment of $2,000 per month from a combination of No-Fault payments and other sources, if available, such as New York State Disability; Worker’s Compensation; and Social Security Disability.  You can increase lost wage benefits by paying an additional premium.

New York State No-Fault Regulation 68

New York State Disability Payments

The amount of New York State Disability benefit payments is calculated at 50% of the portion of your weekly salary not exceeding $170 per week. New York State Disability begins paying on the second week of your disability. Assuming that you are continuously unable to work, you are eligible to receive lost wage benefits from New York State Disability for up to 26 weeks. After the 26 week period, you are no longer eligible to receive lost wage benefits from New York State Disability but No-Fault lost wage benefits up to 80% of your gross wages are still available.

Some insurance companies will sell a stated value insurance policy which will reimburse you for the agreed value at the time you purchased the insurance even if your car is worth substantially less at the time of your car accident. Stated value insurance also known as agreed value insurance is more expensive than actual cash value insurance and is most often purchased for antique cars, collectible cars or new but expensive cars. Some actual cash value insurance policies offer replacement value insurance for a short period such as for one year after purchasing a new car.

One major advantage of purchasing collision damage coverage is that you can be reimbursed even if the car accident was your fault. Often, you may think the accident was caused by someone else, but their insurance company may not agree. In that event, you will either not be reimbursed for the full amount of the damage to your car or may not be reimbursed at all.

If the other insurance company believes that you are at fault for causing the car accident, your only recourse may be to file a lawsuit in the small claims court in the county where the defendant lives. If the defendant does not live or maintain a business, if it is a commercial vehicle, in The Bronx you will have to go to the small claims court in the county where the defendant lives. If you were injured, filing a lawsuit in small claims court for damages could have a detrimental effect on your personal injury lawsuit.

A substantial number of cars in the Bronx are uninsured. If the other car was uninsured, you will probably not be able to obtain reimbursement unless you had collision damage coverage. If the other car was uninsured, your only recourse would be to file a small claims court lawsuit but even if you win, most defendants never pay their judgments. Again, if you were injured, filing a lawsuit in small claims court for damages could have a detrimental effect on your personal injury lawsuit.

Another important advantage of purchasing collision damage coverage is that you will be reimbursed promptly so you can be driving again soon. If you are arguing with someone else’s insurance company over who caused the car accident, you may wait a long time before getting your car repaired and will have to find another means of transportation.

When you have collision damage coverage, your auto insurance company will fight with the other person’s car insurance company so you don’t have to. If the accident was really not your fault, your insurance company will fight with the other insurance company for reimbursement of your deductible. You should ask your insurance company to obtain reimbursement of your deductible and not assume that they will do it.

Even if you and the other insurance company agree on the percentage of liability, the other insurance company may not move as quickly as you would like. In the Bronx, many people have cheap auto insurance with companies that will delay you forever. Since you are not the insured paying the premium when someone else’s insurance is involved, don’t expect to be treated as if you were.

If you have been hurt in a Bronx car accident, please call Attorney Phil Franckel right now for a free consultation at 1-800-487-8911.

Speak directly to Attorney Phil Franckel, Esq. 7days/nights at 1-800-HURT-911.

The FDNY notoriously sends a bill months after they provide the service to you. The problem is that the law requires that medical bills be submitted to the no-fault insurance company within 45 days of the date the service was rendered. By the time you receive the FDNY ambulance bill, it’s too late to submit to no-fault and no-fault will deny the bill. Besides, since the hospital and the doctors have all accepted assignment of your no-fault benefits (that means that they can submit their bills to no-fault and get paid directly by no-fault), you assumed that all the bills will be submitted directly to no fault.

One year later, you receive a collection letter advising you that you owe $476.00 for the ambulance bill. Below is a copy of a portion of a collection letter from ASSETCARE, Inc. a collection agency representing MEDCLR, Inc. a company which purchased the FDNY ambulance bill for pennies on the dollar and is now trying to collect the amount from the injured car accident victim.

This is a common occurrence and probably happens with almost every car accident when the fire department ambulance is called. If the FDNY fails to timely send their bills to the injured or to no-fault, it is unlikely that they will see much money from the collection agency.  For my clients, I immediately notify FDNY of the no-fault insurance claim information, even before they ever send a bill.  This will ensure that my clients are not responsible for the ambulance bill.

If you were in a car accident and transported to the hospital by an FDNY ambulance (or any other ambulance), make sure you call them to provide the ambulance service with the no-fault insurance information and get a copy of the bill so that you can submit the bill within 45 days to your no-fault insurance company.

If it’s already more than 45 days after your car accident and no-fault has denied payment of the ambulance bill, you should send the bill to your health insurance company with a copy of the no-fault denial.

If the FDNY ambulance transports 10,000 car accident victims to the hospital in one year, that comes to $4.76 million per year at $476 per transport. It is amazing to me that the City of New York can close firehouses when they have been losing millions of dollars every year because they can’t do their billing properly. There is an extremely simple solution that would allow the New York City Fire Department to be promptly paid by no-fault on 100% of every transport involving a car accident. If the City of New York, the FDNY, or any politician is interested to know the solution, please call me and I will be happy to provide it.

Philip L. Franckel, Esq.
1-800-HURT-911
1-800-487-8911

Most No-Fault policies have a $200 deductible which means that you are responsible for the first $200 of the claim, not the first $200 for each medical provider.

When you first see a doctor, you should have signed a legal form called an “Assignment of Benefits”. This form allows your doctor to submit the medical bill and get paid directly by the insurance company and also means that you cannot be charged anything for the medical service. For instance, if the doctor’s bill is $1,500 and the doctor receives $680, you are not responsible for the $820 balance. If the doctor does not get paid at all because the medical bill was not submitted within 45 days of treatment, you are not responsible for payment.

If you do not sign an assignment, the doctor will give you a bill for medical services which you must pay to the doctor. You must then submit the bill to the No-Fault insurance company within 45 days of treatment. If you paid $1,500 and No-Fault reimburses you $680, you will be out of pocket $820.

The No-Fault insurance company is entitled to have you examined by their doctors. If you fail to attend a No-Fault medical examination, your No-Fault benefits will be denied for the particular medical specialty of the examination you missed and No-Fault will no longer pay for medical bills relating to that medical specialty. If you are examined by the No-Fault doctor, the doctor will issue a report indicating whether you will continue to receive benefits.

If you have signed an Assignment of Benefits form and your No-Fault benefits are still available, you can continue to see your doctor without worrying about being responsible for medical bills. If your No-Fault benefits have been denied, you will have to find an alternative method of paying for the medical bills, such as health insurance, placing a lien on your car accident case or paying out-of-pocket.

If you are receiving collection letters for medical bills relating to treatment received for injuries resulting from your car accident, you are not responsible for payment if: you had a valid No-Fault claim; the bill is not for the $200 deductible; the treatment was rendered while your no-fault benefits were not yet denied; and you signed an Assignment of Benefits (if your doctor billed No-Fault directly, you must have signed an Assignment of Benefits).

Philip L. Franckel, Esq. is a Bronx car accident lawyer representing people in the Bronx, NYC & LI. Please call Phil Franckel for a free consultation at 1-800-HURT-911.
1-800-487-8911

When serious injuries will keep you out of work for 12 months or more, you can apply for Social Security disability benefits. You must be out of work for at least 12 months to obtain Social Security disability benefits. It takes six months to process your application for Social Security benefits so, if you’re still disabled, you should apply at least six months after your accident.

If you know that you will undergo extensive surgery, such as back surgery/spine surgery, you could apply for Social Security disability benefits prior to your surgery. This will let you get it out of the way early, so you don’t have to worry about it while you’re recuperating. If you return to work before the end of 12 months after your disability, it won’t matter that you already applied. You just won’t be entitled to Social Security Disability.

If you have been injured in a Bronx car accident, call Bronx car accident lawyer Phil Franckel 24/7 for a free consultation without obligation.
1-800-HURT-911
1-800-487-8911

How Insurance Companies Make Billions of Dollars by Denying, Delaying and Defending Car Accident Claims

If you have been injured in a car accident in the Bronx, call Bronx car accident lawyer Phil Franckel 24/7 for a free consultation without obligation.
1-800-HURT-911
1-800-487-8911