Medicare Slow to Accept Lawyers’ Offers of Money
Some personal injury lawyers say their clients are willing and ready to reimburse Medicare for the costs of their care, but the agency is taking as long as a year to come up with a figure for the amount owed.
Kansas City, Mo., lawyer John Kurtz told McClatchy Newspapers he first contacted Medicare in September 2007 to find out what his client owed; he finally got an answer in February 2009. He is one of several lawyers who told the newspaper group they have experienced long delays trying to find out the amount owed by injured clients who have received damage settlements.
Kansas City lawyer Tim Dollar compared the process to a black hole. “It’s next to impossible to find a live person to talk to, so you write to them and you get no response,” he told McClatchy.
Chickasaw Nation Industries Inc. of Norman, Okla., handles recovery of payments for Medicare from people who get money from secondary insurers under a noncompetitive $40 million contract, the story says.
