Hospital bills can be shockingly expensive and when you open that envelope and see that number many people worry, how in the world am I going to pay this hospital bill. Well, under South Carolina law, the person who caused the car accident, the person who caused your injuries, is responsible for those medical bills on top of other damages. Now, when you first get that hospital bill, I recommend the following: First, call the hospital. Let them know it was because of a car accident, but also make sure that they have your health insurance information. Insist that they submit that bill to your health insurance company. You may have to do this multiple times and you may want to do it in writing. The second thing is for you to call your health insurance company. Let them know what is going on. Tell them that you got this hospital bill, and ask your health insurance company specific ways to get that bill paid. The next thing that you want to do is call your insurance adjuster and you want to tell your insurance adjuster the amount of the bill. Now, for our clients, we take care of all of that for them. So, we get all the hospital bills, we get all the medical records, and we take care of all the communications with the insurance adjusters. The most important thing is that you are communicating with the hospital, that they understand you have health insurance, that you want to submit the health insurance information and communicate with your health insurance company.

 I often get the question, if the insurance company totals my car, can I still keep it? And the answer is you can. You want to specifically negotiate that with the insurance company. Now, they're going to reduce the amount of money that they're going to offer you by the scrap value of the car. Basically, the value of the metals inside of the car, and they will allow you to keep the car, plus the settlement money. Now, you can do with your car whatever you want to do at that point. You can get it fixed if you'd like or you could use it for other reasons. However, you will need to deal with the DMV in getting a salvage title.

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Do I need to use a specific rental car company for my rental car after a car crash? And the answer is you can use whatever rental car company you would like. Typically what is going to happen is the at-fault driver's insurance company is going to arrange for a rental car for you. The law says that the at-fault driver must compensate an injured person for the loss of use of their vehicle, and so that could be any rental car company that you contract with. However, it is much easier to negotiate with the insurance company, the at-fault insurance company, to get a rental car directly through them.

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  The at-fault driver, and correspondingly that person's insurance company, is required by law to pay you the value of the time that you lost on your car. Often what they will do is make arrangements with the rental car company to provide you with a rental car. So, you will want to call the insurance adjuster and make those arrangements when your car goes into the shop. Now, it's important that you understand the law says comparable vehicle. So, if you have a minivan, a comparable vehicle would not be a smaller four-door sedan. The at-fault insurance company is required to get you a comparable vehicle, such as another minivan or an SUV that would fit your family.

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 The first tip here is to make sure that you're keeping great records. Always keep a doctor's excuse for every single day that you missed. You also want to talk to your HR department to make sure that you're getting a sheet that details how much time you've missed and the amount of your wages. The at-fault driver and that person's insurance company is going to be responsible for your lost earnings however that doesn't happen until you settle your case which could be months down the road. There may be some other insurance benefits that you qualify for on your insurance policy. I recommend you having a lawyer take a look at that policy to make sure that you get all the insurance benefits that you've paid for. Apart from that there's no quick benefits because the insurance company will only pay you once your case settled. Another option is to check with your HR department to see if there's some sort of short-term disability benefits that you might be able to qualify for.

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Well, the answer is you want to pay your copays,  you will want to use your medical insurance. Often the medical providers will request the information from the at fault driver. However, what you want to do is use your medical insurance to pay for those medical bills. Don't worry. The law in most cases requires that you pay back your health insurance company once you settle your case; however, there's a lot of benefits to you making sure that you use your own health insurance instead of allowing any medical provider to try and bill the at fault driver's car insurance.

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Well, the answer is as quickly as you need to. In other words if you need emergency medical services, then you need to take the ambulance to the E.R. If it's a type of injury that you believe you can wait or that gets worse over time, then you want to go to the doctor as quickly as possible. A preference would be your family doctor who knows your medical history and has treated you over a long period of time, so that would be the priority. However, don't wait too long to get to your doctor. If it's going to take a few days to get you an appointment, then what I would recommend is to go to an urgent care facility that could see you right away. You don't want to let too many days pass until you get to a doctor. You want to go right away.

You can get a replacement vehicle as soon as you'd like. However what I recommend is waiting until you've completed the negotiation with the insurance company and they have sent you and you've received the settlement check. Then you can take that settlement check and you can take it to the car dealer to get a new vehicle.