The Hospital Bill Write-Down and What It Does to the Lien
When a hospital accepts a discounted payment from a health plan, the gap between the chargemaster rate and the accepted amount is a lien-re…
Category
Liens & Settlement
Medical liens, Letters of Protection, ERISA/MSP reductions, and settlement-distribution mechanics.
Cutting Down a Medicare Conditional Payment Before Final Demand
Traditional Medicare pays first and recovers later, but most firms accept the demand as written. Here is how to strip unrelated charges, ca…
Special Needs Trusts: Preserving SSI and Medicaid After a PI Settlement
When a personal-injury recovery would push a claimant off SSI and Medicaid, a special needs trust holds the funds without triggering disqua…
The Federal Recovery Claim PI Firms Forget on Military Clients
The Federal Medical Care Recovery Act and TRICARE give the government an independent right to recover from a PI settlement. It survives you…
Medicaid's Reach Into Future Medicals After Gallardo
Since Gallardo, a state Medicaid agency can recover from the future-medical portion of a settlement, not just past care. Allocation is now…
The Liability Medicare Set-Aside Nobody Wants to Price
Liability Medicare set-asides sit in a regulatory vacuum. Here are the defensible options for future medicals and the reporting exposure th…
Making Lienholders Share the Cost of the Recovery
A lienholder that shares in the settlement should share in the fees and costs that produced it. How the common-fund doctrine works, where p…
The Medicare Advantage Lien That Can Double on You
A Medicare Advantage plan that goes unpaid from a settlement can sue for double what it laid out. Here is how to identify Part C liens, red…
Getting Subrogation Waivers: The Trade Every Carrier Will Actually Make
Carriers rarely waive subrogation because you asked nicely. They waive because you gave them a reason tied to their own exposure or their o…
Hospital Lien Perfection Defects: The Patterns That Save Recovery
California's Hospital Lien Act reads like a short checklist, and hospitals miss items on it constantly. The recurring defects — thin notice…
California Hospital Liens Under Civil Code §§3045.1–3045.6: 2026 Practice
The California Hospital Lien Act gives a hospital that provides emergency care a statutory right to recover from a tort recovery — but the…
Medi-Cal Lien Reduction in PI: The Ahlborn Process and 2026 Practice
The 50-percent statutory default is a starting point, not a settlement. Plaintiff counsel handling Medi-Cal liens after Ahlborn and Wos has…