We are thrilled to see Queener Law featured in VoyageDenver! What an honor!
We love their insightful questions that prompt us to think a bit more about how we got here and why we have made the choices we made along the way. The life of a business owner is full of forks in the road and choices. It is always important to look back and evaluate the road already traveled to help make the right decisions for the one ahead. We are also extremely happy that our client-centric focus came through. We purposefully keep out hometown feel and insist that our clients speak to a partner every time. We want to make sure our clients know how important they are and how dedicated we are to their cases. It was very exciting to hear that the editors wanted to see Queener Law featured in VoyageDenver to give us a chance to share that view with the community.
Call us any time for a free consultation or to refer your friends or family members in need of help. No more being tossed around from attorney to attorney or case manager to case manager. At Queener Law, you will be in the capable hands of a partner and paralegals from start to finish. Your case deserves undivided attention, and so do you.
“The insurance company said they’d pay all my medical bills. Now they only want to pay a fraction of what I owe!’ We have heard this complaint almost daily in our decades of practice. What’s the reason and who’s the culprit? Of course, every story like this begins with the fact that car insurance companies are designed to collect premiums and not pay out. But that is not the only conspiracy happening here. Hospitals and medical providers have found ways to use the car insurance system to increase profits, as well. In a recent article in The New York Times, the master plan of hospital billing is broken down into the following steps:
1. Medical Swag
When you are in a wreck, the first thing the EMS or ER staff will do is slap on that age-old neck brace. Often, that neck brace either came free as medical sales swag or was bought in bulk at a rate of a few bucks each. When you get your medical bills in the mail, you find out that your insurance paid $100-plus and you owe an additional $20 bucks or so after insurance. You could get the same brace at your local pharmacy for much less. But when your chart is flagged for a car accident, out comes the medical swag. And in the end, all of this gets paid by the car insurance company… out of your settlement.
2. The Cover Charge
When you are taken to the emergency room, you get a bill. That we know. But did you know that this bill is just for use of the room? In essence, that bill is a “cover charge” for entry. In addition to that fee, which may vary depending on how emergent or traumatic your injury may be, there is a separate fee for every material used and every person who walks into the room. In many cases, you’ll even get a completely separate bill just for the use of a doctor, a necessary component of your emergency room visit. This bill, again, may vary based on what the hospital determines is the severity of your injury. Two guesses what they label car accident victims as in order to increase their bill.
3. Impostor Billing
Not only can you get billed for every person who walks in the room, but you may also receive a bill for people who you have never met. Medical billing allows for “consult billing,” even when the physician never consulted with the patient themselves. If a radiologist simply stops an orthopedist in the hallway for a second look at your x-rays, you get billed. These are not common charges, but we see them often in cases like auto accidents where the hospital anticipates deep pockets.
4. The Drive-By
In more serious cases, where post-ER treatment is required, you can get billed even before your first visit. For instance, if your injury requires physical therapy, a therapist can enter the room just to discuss your future therapy visits, and you will receive a bill for that conversation. A full assessment or actual therapeutic treatment is not required for the hospital to bill for it.
5. Avectus
We have added this prong because it is so prevalent and crushing to your in-pocket compensation while filling the hospital’s bank account. Hospitals allow representatives from Avectus or other lien companies to enter patients’ rooms, although they have no medical training or degrees and have not received consent from the patient or relatives. Their only purpose is to have medicated and shocked accident victims sign forms promising to pay the hospital’s bill in its entirety, regardless of whether they have health insurance. Why? Because the hospital does not want to take the contractual discount with the health insurance, and instead wants to take as much as possible from the auto insurance policy, in addition to all of your other medical bills.
The End Game
Why do we care so much about what the hospital is doing if the car insurance company is paying in the end? Why should you care about what money goes where? An auto insurance policy is like a bank account. Everything that comes out of it – including medical bills – reduces the amount in the account. In other words, every penny the hospital takes is one less for you. If your hospital bill is inflated simply because you were in an auto accident, your compensation for the injuries you sustained will go to the hospital rather than to you. If the auto policy available is only $50,000 and your hospital bill is $40,000, there is very little money left to pay remaining bills, reimburse your lost wages, or cover your future medical needs. And that’s if you don’t come out with a $75,000 bill and only $50,000 in automobile insurance. What can be done to stop this? Short of changing legislation, simply put, you need an attorney. Our office has decades of experience forcing hospitals to use health insurance and refusing to pay their liens if they are on notice and ignore us. We not only fight the insurance company on your behalf, but we also hold the hospitals to a high ethical and economical standard, refusing to let them dig into the policy that was meant to compensate you. Be aware and proactive with your health and your future. Work with a firm that has no blind side. We see the attacks coming, and will head them off at the start.
Require two-wheeled assistance to get around? When it snows, this world is not for you. We all know the feeling of waking up to the gorgeous snow, a feeling that quickly shifts to the grind of warming the car, scraping the windows, and pulling on snow boots over your suit or uniform pants. What we do not all experience is sliding into our wheelchair, looking out the window, and realizing we are stuck. When your wheels are not your alternate method of travel, but are instead are your only vehicle for point A to B travel, even a little snow and ice on the ground can be a hurdle the likes of which champion horses struggle to jump. We’ve all seen the memes of what living on one side of the road versus the other can mean in Colorado when it comes to snow accumulation. Now think differently – think what it means to live in someone else’s shoes… err, wheels.
Even when a sidewalk or ramp has been shoveled, the tiniest patch of ice can send your neighbor slipping into the road, off the path, and into danger. The easiest act for able-bodied folks in the snow is getting to the car. Most of the work is the shoveling, scraping, and salting. When you’re in a chair, none of this is possible. Many people are in wheelchairs because of already complicated health issues, weakened hard and soft tissue structures, and other tenuous health conditions. A fall, especially in the cold, can bring on complications very quickly. Yet so can missing doctor’s appointments or being unable to get to work where money is earned to pay for medical treatment. Whether you’re excited about snow days or grumbling over how the mess on the roads makes a mess of your schedule, pause. Think about whether your neighbors or community members use your sidewalk to get around. Salt it. Think about whether your neighbor is wheelchair bound. Shovel and salt theirs. And if there is anyone in your circle, whether neighborhood, friend, or work life, go clean and scrape their car, shovel and salt their ramp and sidewalk. And while you’re at it, do the same for any older friends or new moms. Bring the family! Make a game out of it! Yes, you’ll be late for work. But you’ll help others get to their jobs, and you’ll save them from harm.
Let’s assume for a moment that the hoax of climate change is real. Now that we’ve gotten over that little speedbump, raise your hand if you’ve slogged through an airport recently, searching for the least crowded bar serving $14 well drinks, all thanks to Mother Nature’s insistence that your flight be delayed or canceled. Many of us know this tale so well that it’s beginning to feel like Groundhogs Day, but without the benefit of having Bill Murray join us in our plight… not that he’d be exempt. In fact, just this year there have been so many delays and cancellations due to weather that finding an estimated number just for DIA puts Google to the test. It makes sense to most of us that two bomb cyclones in a single year may put a damper on some snow-birding south or snowboarding west. But summer can be just as brutal. “Heat wave” has become common vernacular in parts of the country where the term was previously used for body temps and songs on that dusty vinyl rescued from your mom’s attic, not for transportation. What does 1960’s Motown have to do with travel and climate change? Everything. According to a 2017 article in Forbes magazine, Bombardier CRJ’s can only withstand 118 degrees and larger Boeing jets can’t get much past 125 in order to operate properly. Why? Remember in 3rd grade when you were just learning to write those “check yes or no” notes to your crush while your teacher was desperately trying to teach you how to get an egg into a 2-Liter using just a match? Call her and thank her for explaining to the 8-year-old you why the… ahem… more distinguished version of yourself should start exploring alternatives to air travel. Or call the National Weather Service to inquire as to the accuracy of their early-August report showing near-nationwide heatwaves with temperatures inching closer to forced “stay-cations.”
Road Trip!
Think you’ll out-smart nature and finally see Route 66 from start to finish? Au contraire! In July of this year, the National Weather Service warned of heat waves one week and cold fronts with flash flooding and damaging winds the next. So if the buckled roads don’t squelch your determination, the rushing waters of the Plains States just might. Angry at our wrath-bearing planet? Watch that finger-pointing. All that air transportation we’ve been suffering cancellations is really turn-about finally becoming fair play, according to the New York Times. A June article written by Andy Newman cited scientific conclusions such this: One 2,500-mile passenger’s contribution to emissions melts 32 square feet of Arctic summer sea ice. And a 600-mile drive to an Airbnb with a peaceful spa tub might as well be a giant flame-thrower to the Arctic, melting 90 square feet of ice per person. That’s a chunk the size of our beloved Jeep Unlimiteds. Want to get especially gruesome? A scientist from my Alma mater, University of Tennessee – where the rumor of dead bodies under Neyland Stadium and a body farm just across the river is true – estimated that the average American generates three times the global average of carbon dioxide annually, a lethal dosage to the third rock we live atop.
Cruisin’
Alright, then. No road trips, no sky miles. Let’s all just charge the gangway of the closest cruise ship and take “King of the World” selfies with Celine songs in the background and shuffleboard games taking on SEC vs Big Ten-esque rivalries. That should solve both our transportation and climate problems with one shuffle of the board… is that what it’s called? Except… according to the International Council on Clean Transportation, the most efficient ships sailing the seven seas emit 3 to 4 times more carbon dioxide than those pesky jets. And if you’re still set on shopping at the dockside markets of Jamaica, keep your face mask handy while on board. Particulate counts on cruise ships are comparable to – or worse than – the air quality in Beijing. Alas, how can we safely see the planet and save it at the same time? It seems the experts agree: prioritize, protest, and offset. Prioritize your travel, opting for the less-emitting road trip over the flight, the flight over the cruise. And before kicking those tires and lighting those fires, toss some cash towards offsetting sites to make up for your contribution to polar bear homelessness. Throw your money into methane emanations instead of into the pockets of the worst offenders. It’s the eco-version of “Be kind. Rewind.”
No one likes to think about the worst. But in our role as officers of the court, we are tasked with doing just that. All too often, we represent the families of people who have passed due to the negligence of another: families of injured children or working parents who will have years of recovery ahead of them due to someone else’s negligent actions. And we continue to push back against the caps put into place by the state legislature on what those families are allowed to collect. Often when the worst happens, the settlement or judgment against the party at fault serves as a life insurance policy from the decedent to their loved ones. This is because many do not have life insurance coverage at all, or if they do, it amounts to $100,000 or less. But when the family is left with numerous medical bills, estate costs, funeral expenses, house payments, and loss of dual income that helped support the household, $100,000 does not go very far, if it covers the necessities at all.
The state legislature in Colorado saw fit to limit the amount these grieving families could be compensated through legal means from the at-fault party. Years ago, the cap on damages was limited to $468,010 in non-economic damages for a wrongful death claim. That means that after the direct medical bills related to the death are paid, families may receive a maximum of $468,010 to help them cover the costs and expenses above. Period. For life. There is no going back and asking for more. There is no fund from which to draw if times get tough and there is nothing left. What if the family of the deceased has no one else to work and support the household? What if the deceased was a single mother or father of several children who have no one else to support them? And after the payment of all death, funeral, medical, and household costs, little is left to support these children through to adulthood, to keep up with house payments or school needs and college funds? Should these children be disallowed to seek their education as planned because someone else negligently caused the death of their parent? Should they become wards of the state? Should they go to another family member who is already living paycheck to paycheck with very little to ease the burden? Further, this amount has not changed in many years, meaning it has not kept up with inflation.
Finally, and thankfully, the state government has paid attention to the cries of the victims of negligent acts. Governor Polis signed into law a new bill that not only raises the various caps by approximately $20,000 each, keeping in line with inflation. In addition, instead of the old ways of checking in over a decade later to ensure the caps are keeping up, the caps will be proverbially babysat every two years. Problem solved? Not really. From our perspective of working with these families day in and day out, the inflation bump helps, but when you are faced with the prospect of having very little to support your family with the loss of your spouse, or being paralyzed and requiring medical treatment and an inability to work and provide for your family, a mere few hundred thousand from the party that put you in that position hardly seems adequate. Even if a jury awards a plaintiff millions of dollars in non-economic damages, all they will see is the exact amount of the cap.
For reference, here is where they stand and where they will be once this law goes into effect:
Current non-economic damages cap — $468,010 Anticipated new cap adjusted for inflation $584,210
Current dram shop/social host cap — $280,810 Anticipated new cap adjusted for inflation $350,550
Current wrongful death cap — $468,010 Anticipated new cap adjusted for inflation $584,210
Current solatium cap — $87,210 Anticipated new cap adjusted for inflation $108,840
While there are legal means to, as we say in the biz, “bust the cap,” this is not an easy concept and there are extremely limited and narrow exceptions that must be followed so precisely that many fail to qualify. We wholeheartedly understand the community’s desire for some control over liability and to keep a handle on litigation results. However, we must put closer consideration to the lives that are left behind when horror strikes. No amount of money will replace a loved one or give a human being back their dignity and use of their limbs. But adequate compensation to get them through the next years of their life, help keep a roof over their home, food in their kid’s bellies, and heat running through the ducts while they try to get back on their feet… that we can do. If you find yourself sitting on a jury evaluating the damages for a catastrophic injury, please keep in mind these things we have discussed today. And do not limit your verdict to these caps. If you see fit to award the plaintiff more than that legislatures meager attempts at adequate compensation, write it down on that line.
Allow the team fighting for the injured some leeway to petition for a cap bust. And next time you send a letter or make a phone call to your representatives, remember to ask them exactly where these numbers came from and why they feel that politicians know more than the jury, who has sat through perhaps weeks of documentation of this person’s future life and needs, about the value of that. Do not let elected officials usurp the power of a jury, one of the oldest and most important civic duties in our country’s history. Finally, if you or a loved one find yourself in a time of loss or catastrophic injury, please call an attorney right away. Do not try to navigate these complexities on your own. You need to focus on the next steps for your family while we focus on taking on the negligent party and the legislature’s regulations simultaneously so we can get you set as close to right as possible when the dust settled. We are happy to answer any questions free of charge to get you moving in the right direction. Come read about what we have been able to do so far and call or email us to see how we can help you in the future.
