Legal Question in Personal Injury in California

Re: Medicare repayment

Great question.

First, if you have an attorney, he has a duty toward a public entity to notify them of the settlement and make sure that they are not "neglected."

You, as an insured, have an independent obligation to indemnify Medicare. I highly recommend that you set some money aside now, especially if you had a large settlement and received a lot of medical treatment under Medicare, so that if they ask for their share 4-6 months from now, which is likely to happen, you are able to pay.

Also, their share is negotiable so you will be able to reduce their fees.

Medicare has various channels of finding out about settlements as they have a whole recovery team that handles that.

Thanks,

Arkady Itkin

http://sanfranciscoaccidentinjurylawyer.com

Re: Medicare repayment

While I don't have enough facts to comment on your specific situation, generally, under federal law, medicare does have the right to be reimbursed out of the settlement funds recovered from the party at fault or their insurer. The medicare recipient is required to inform medicare of the recovery. However, in practice many people do not. Whether medicare ever finds out about the recovery is another question.