Posted on Wednesday, January 22nd, 2014 at 7:19 pm
You’ve been injured in a wreck. Within two days, your phone rings. The caller claims to be with the other driver’s insurance company. You’re told that the insurance company has arranged medical treatment for you. All you have to do is to go to a certain doctor or chiropractor. The other insurance company pays for everything. Don’t fall for it!
Or within a few days after your wreck, somebody knocks on your door. They tell you that they are going to give you a ride to a doctor or chiropractor. You’re told that you don’t have to pay anything out of pocket. Don’t fall for it!
Or within a few weeks after your wreck, you get a letter from a doctor or chiropractor. The letter says that your initial visit for medical treatment is free. Don’t fall for it!
Unless you’ve been injured on the job, no insurance company will arrange your treatment. If they did, this would encourage people–who weren’t even hurt–to obtain unnecessary medical treatment. It would encourage uninjured people to claim they were hurt. It would cause the insurance company to pay for the cost of unneeded medical treatment. And if the medical provider botched the treatment, the insurance company could even be sued for medical malpractice. Insurance companies don’t work this way!
It’s for these same reasons that insurance companies don’t give people rides to the doctor. Unless you are hurt on the job, no insurance company is going to take you to any doctor.
Likewise, no reputable doctor will send someone to your door, unannounced, to pick you up. In-person solicitation by these “runners” is just plain wrong. It also opens the doctor up to being charged with practicing law without a license. This is because that advising you about your rights to have an insurance company pay for your treatment is the practice of law. And only licensed attorneys may practice law.
We also see lots of solicitations for medical treatment. Some claim to provide a free initial visit. Yet, we hear from people all the time that are billed several hundred dollars for the free visit.
If any of these things happens to you, you should immediately contact a personal injury attorney for legal advice. At McCutchen Napurano - The Law Firm, we deal with these issues every day. We know how to stop injured people from becoming victimized by others following a wreck.
