Health related Liens Healthcare Laws Proverbial Catch 22

Izvor: KiWi

While meeting financial demands may be nothing new for healthcare facilities, for today's healthcare providers a legal climate exists that has been described as an 'economic gauntlet. Just keeping the lights on for some healthcare facilities is an issue facing far too many healthcare providers. How does this issue affect you? Let us explore this question.

Nationwide health-related lumbar puncture procedures care providers deal with tough issues daily, in part such issues range from; rising operational costs, State and Federal funding cut backs, reduced corporate donations created by a tough economy, and Federal legislation ensuring emergency medical care for all patients. Granted while such challenges are just a sample of the issues facing America's health-related providers, make no mistake, these issues alone are reason enough for a "fiscal juggling act" providers face as demands increase while capital is decreasing.

For the federally subsidized healthcare institution, each provider is compelled by Federal statute to provide emergency healthcare treatment to all patients, irregardless of the patient's ability to pay. To date; the financial impact such regulation has on health-related providers has been defined by recent statistics that show over 50% of all emergency patients admitted annually have no proof of insurance at the time of admission. So what's the correlation? Patients who receive emergency health-related care benefit from the current legislation, as each receives medical treatment without a guarantee of financial responsible for such treatment. For medical providers the losses associated with patient care is absorbed as taxable deductions as well as passed on as increased healthcare costs to insured patients. Thus insured or not this situation affects us all.

For the healthcare providers who are profitable, a "taxable write " for uncollected patient accounts provides an advantage, but for medical provider whose write offs exceed revenue, there's a real paradox. For providers to meet fiscal demands while not generating sufficient capital to meet overhead, and yet expected to provide quality care, well is too much being asked? Not if you're a patient who's standard of care falls below that guaranteed by national standards.

For the profitable healthcare facility write offs provide a slight advantage, but the reality is a "business as usual" approach to healthcare can not continue as at current because the facts are; a day of reckoning in on the horizon for us all. For medical facility executives to keep the books balanced money must be available to meet financial demands and absorbing losses doesn't meet the demands incurred by wages, salaries, supplies, utilities, equipment, bank notes and the like. And while you're calculating the hundreds of millions in expenses just for these categories, add to the equation the legal costs of collections for unpaid uninsured accounts. Now as you wear out your calculator, are you beginning to understand the economic crunch health-related facilities face when treating the uninsured and ending up on the short end of the "financial stick"?

Granted while most U.S. consumers find themselves shedding no tears for multi-billion dollar healthcare facilities, you may find yourself feeling differently the next time you're in need of emergency healthcare care and none is available because, the once prosperous health-related facility is closed due to the economic reasons. Something to think about wouldn't you agree? Are there other options verses the standard way of doing business? Absolutely. Now let's explore uninsured patients and the financial solution healthcare providers have available.

The "Solution"...the "Medical Lien"

The healthcare lien is a legal security provided to a medical provider when a patient later becomes a plaintiff in a legal case. In such a situation if settlement occurs, health-related providers are compensated as the attorney of record compensates the provider out of the insurance collection proceeds. However, as financially sound as a health-related lien appears to be, in a real world application, untold losses occur each year from the use of the healthcare lien.

While health-related liens are a nationally used legal tool, for the millions of patients treated annually under this devise the facts are, all too often a healthcare lien leaves the providers who rely on them with the "short end of the financial stick". Revenues the health-related lien are designed to generate instead create liability for the medical facility, and thus the results are, beyond emergency care, some healthcare providers decline patients or at best limit the amount of patients they accept whose care is secured by the healthcare lien.

For the patient who becomes a plaintiff, the injured more often than not need ongoing health-related care in order to achieve maximum health-related recovery. "MMR" is the sought after goal for the attorney in order to achieve settlement, satisfy the health-related lien providers, be compensated themselves and the patient-plaintiff.

As an illustrative example when an auto accident occurs and the uninsured injured receive emergency healthcare care. In such instances the patient-plaintiff needs ongoing healthcare treatment in order to ultimately achieve mmr which ultimately correlates to an insurance settlement. This is where for the health-related provider, the patient-plaintiff, and their attorney the proverbial "catch 22" begins.

For health-related providers the paradox is such must maintain positive cash flow in order to provide services. Because medical liens do not provide guaranteed compensation a growing number of healthcare providers refuse to provide ongoing medical care under the auspices of the health-related lien. For other medical providers who limit the services provided or the amount of patients accepted whose file is secured by a healthcare lien, are forced to do so because of the lack of guaranteed compensation combined with the shear length of time involved in achieving compensation.