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Be Covered With Med-Pay

Car accidents are no fun for anyone. They’re even worse when someone was injured, especially financially. Depending on the accident, you might be looking at hundreds or thousands of dollars in medical bills. Usually, most people don’t have an emergency fund for that.

 

Well, Med-Pay is part of your car insurance to help you cover your medical payments. Progressive says “Medical Payments coverage, also known as MedPay coverage, pays medical expenses for you and any passengers in your vehicle who are injured during an accident or auto-related injury.” It protects you regardless of who is considered to be at fault for the accident.

 

Starting January 1, 2009, Colorado mandated insurance companies to offer a minimum of $5,000 of Med-Pay coverage. Depending upon the insurance company you use, the maximum amount of Med-Pay coverage can be up to $100,000. Now this coverage is the amount per person per accident. For example: If you have $5,000 of Med-Pay coverage, and there were 3 people involved in the accident, there will be $5,000 for each of those people in the car accident, so a total of $15,000, but each individual can only use up to $5,000.

Now, $5,000 seems like that could cover you if you were in an accident, but let’s talk about why it’s important to have that increased to get you the care you need for pennies.

 

Say you’re in an accident, and you broke your leg in the accident. You have to be transported to the nearest hospital via ambulance. That hospital is out of your network for your health insurance. You have to then go to a specialist because the break went into a joint. You need surgery. You have follow up appointments. Then you need Physical Therapy to rehabilitate your broken leg. All the while, you also got a concussion and severe whiplash. You need to see a Craniosacral Therapist for the concussion, and you’ve been seeing a Chiropractor and Massage Therapist to help rehabilitate your whiplash. You see the Chiropractor twice a week, the Massage Therapist once a week, and the Craniosacral Therapist once a week. Recovering from that bad of an accident takes a lot of time, so this care regiment goes on for months, perhapsĀ 12-24 months. How’s that $5,000 looking now for those medical bills?

 

Okay, that’s a really bad accident. Hopefully no one will be in one that’s that awful. But what about a smaller accident?

 

You’re in an accident. It didn’t seem that bad. You really just tapped the car in front of you. You walked away from the accident, a little shaken up, but overall alright, but the accident bent the frame of the car, so your car is totaled. Thankfully you’re smart and have full coverage on your car, so your car is replaced. Six months go by. You haven’t been sleeping super well, and now your shoulders always feel tight and you’re getting headaches. Sitting for a long time kind of hurts your lower back. Guess what?!? You got whiplash in that small car accident! It only takes 10 mph of impact to create soft tissue damage. And now you want to get Massage and Chiropractic to recover. Well a Med-Pay claim can be opened from an accident up to 2 years after the incident, and can definitely cover your recovery care. And maybe that $5,000 could cover your care.

 

It’s important to take care of yourself after any accident. Whiplash is insidious–symptoms sometimes don’t manifest for 6 months or even longer. Addressing possible symptoms of whiplash early will decrease adverse complications, and help you moving longer. We have billed insurance directly for car accidents for over 2 years now, so we have a pretty good hold on the process. We can help you get better and we can work directly with your insurance or lawyer to make sure you get the care that you need!

 

If you want to talk to someone about helping you make sure you have the appropriate amount of Med-Pay on your car accident policy, we have a few trusted advisors.

John Murphy – Allstate – (970) 223-1256

Sandra Nobi – Squires Insurance Solutions – (970) 402-6842

Sam Shada – Farmers Insurance – (970) 484-1400