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Advice on how to pay for medical and legal expenses while waiting for your compensation.

Financial Tips for Getting Through a Personal Injury LawsuitSuffering a serious injury in any kind of accident can cause more than just physical and emotional pain. It can also cause financial pain as you struggle to cover your medical bills and other expenses, especially if you are out of work. Here are some tips that will help you understand how to resolve your claim without incurring any unnecessary upfront expenses or sinking yourself deep into credit card debt.

Find Contingency Fee Representation

Hiring a personal injury attorney is essential for the best chance of a successful claim. However, you need to remember that you do not need to pay up front. Many experienced personal injury attorneys, including Fernando D. Vargas, work on a contingency fee basis. This means they will cover all your legal costs and only get repaid when you win a settlement.

Understand What Your Case is Worth

It is very important to understand how much you could reasonably expect to win in your personal injury case, as this will inform your decision of whether or not to accept a settlement. Your attorney will of course help you figure this out, but ultimately you will have to make the decision. Typically, it is more advantageous to accept a low but fair settlement offer because this will save you from the years of delays and increased costs associated with going to court. However, if the offer is far below what you could reasonably expect to win in court, you could be justified in pressing on even if this requires you to take on some debt to cover your daily expenses.

Be Smart About Medical Liens

If you cannot pay your medical bills, the doctor, hospital, or other care facility may want to place a medical lien against your personal injury settlement. This means that when you win your settlement, the medical provider will get paid out of this settlement, before any of the money reaches your pocket. This can potentially be advantageous not only because it relieves you of the immediate pressure of your medical bills, but also because experienced personal injury attorneys are often able to negotiate for the lienholder to accept less than the full value of your medical bills. However, medical liens should be considered extremely carefully. They can sometimes result in inflated medical expenses (especially if you do not have medical insurance) and you will not escape paying the lien if you lose your personal injury case.

Consider Lawsuit Funding

If you are out of work following an injury and cannot cover your daily expenses, you might want to consider taking out a loan against your potential future settlement. This can provide much-needed relief, especially for individuals with poor credit who may not be able to qualify for other types of financing. Lawsuit loans do tend to have high costs associated with them, so if you are not careful you could find that a significant portion of your settlement will end up being paid to the lawsuit funding company rather than to you. However, the advantage is that the lender carries all the risk—if you do not win your case you will not have to repay the loan.