Subrogation: Benefit Plans' Claims for Recovery of Benefits Paid
In today's difficult economic climate, benefit plans are increasing their efforts to enforce claims to recover benefits paid on behalf of personal injury victims from the victims's personal injury settlements. These benefit plans may be medical benefit plans, Medicare, Medicaid, or disability benefits plans. Because benefit plans did not traditionally make recovery claims, tort systems are not prepared to cover these claims. As a result, liability limits are generally not sufficient to compensate the personal injury victim and the benefit plan. Understanding these difficult dynamics, Magruder Law strives to limit the amount recoverable by the plans so that the personal injury victim retains as much of his or her recovery as possible.
Moreover, as the benefit plans increase their efforts, the laws governing the plans' ability to recover have become more complicated. Magruder Law has extensive experience in this area of the law. Before starting her own firm, Linda Magruder worked for two and a half years as Associate General Counsel and Directory of Disability Recoveries for the largest subrogation vendor in America whose customers were some of the largest insurance companies in America. Linda negotiated hundreds of subrogation matters, counseled benefits plans on language and recovery issues, and contributed research and writing to the Rawlings and Associates National Law Manual's 2005, 2006 and 2007 editions. Now Linda applies that knowledge to help personal injury victims.
Magruder Law works in concert with the personal injury victim's trial lawyer. 1.By outsourcing this critical area of the victim's case, trial lawyers are able to maintain their focus on maximizing a liability recovery while Magruder Law minimizes the plan's portion of that recovery. This yields a more efficient process and, more importantly, insures a larger net recovery for the victim.
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1.Professional ethics opinions uniformly support a trial attorney’s ability to outsource. See, e.g., ABA Ethics Opinion 08-451 (August 5, 2008) and New York Professional Ethics Committee Opinion (July 2008).