Getting medical treatment after you have been in a Coachella Valley car accident can be difficult if you don't have major medical insurance through your employment or private medical insurance coverage that you pay for yourself. If these two options don't exist you may still be able to get the medical treatment you require if you have medical payments coverage as part of your auto liability insurance policy. Failing that last option you will find it very hard to find doctors who will be willing to treat an uninsured patient outside of an emergency hospital visit scenario.
If you have been a car crash victim and it is determined by the police or other first responders that you are in need of a trip to the emergency room, you will be transported to the ER by ambulance without being asked whether or not you have medical insurance. If you have been in a Palm Springs auto accident and need emergency medical treatment you will most likely be taken to Desert Regional Medical Center for ER treatment. Desert Regional has a highly respected trauma department that often treats accident victims who eventually retain the law firm of Barry Regar A Professional Law Corporation for their personal injury cases.
Once the injured person is discharged from the ER it is usually recommended that the patient follow up with a family practice doctor or a specialist. It is at this point that the uninsured innocent accident victim begins hitting the wall in trying to get in to see a doctor. Urgent care facilities often want cash up front or an insurance card. These clinics sometimes don't want to treat patients that have been injured in car accidents because they don't want to get involved with lawyers and litigation. Although this policy seems odd considering that a back injury patient deserves the right to medical treatment whether the injury was caused by a car crash or just old age, I have been told by some of my clients that they were refused treatment for auto accident injuries at certain Palm Desert and Palm Springs urgent care offices.
In Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, and larger Southern California cities it is much easier for uninsured accident victims who were injured because of the negligence of another driver to obtain medical treatment on a lien basis if the treating doctor can feel secure that the prospective patient will be successful in litigation and the doctor will be paid after an out of court settlement or a favorable jury trial verdict. Unfortunately there are not many doctors in the Coachella Valley that will treat personal injury patients on a lien basis. The lien arrangement simply means that the doctor, physical therapist, radiologist or other medical provider treats the patient without immediate payment from the patient or an insurance company. However there is a catch to this kind of arrangement with the doctor. An accident victim who seeks medical treatment on a lien basis without an attorney representing that person will find it extremely difficult to get treated because the medical provider is not generally inclined to trust the patient who doesn't have a lawyer to be able to handle the personal injury case to a successful conclusion. Think about it. Doctors know that insurance adjusters don't treat accident victims with respect and certainly don't have the injured person's best interests in mind when negotiating a settlement. Therefore most doctors or chiropractors that I know refuse to treat patients on a lien basis without legal representation.
If you are injured in an accident and don't have insurance you may have to apply for Medi-Cal or other government medical assistance. Some of my clients who got medical treatment before retaining my law firm, had to go to the Riverside County medical facility in Moreno Valley for follow up medical care for their car accident injuries after they were discharged for a local ER room. Because it is very important for those injured to get prompt and reasonable medical care for their injuries to be able to begin healing and to document the injuries, the accident victim without medical insurance should consult a lawyer as soon as that person determines that they are unable to get the medical treatment they so desperately need. Insurance adjusters and their lawyers love to argue that a person who claims to have been injured must not have really been injured if there is a medical treatment history lacking after an auto accident. Very often the lack of medical treatment is not because the injured person didn't have real painful injuries; but because that person didn't have medical insurance or the money to go to the doctor.
Contact the Barry Regar Law Firm to get advice about how to get the medical treatment you need after a car accident.