If you’ve recently been injured in a truck accident in South Carolina, you may be wondering how you’ll pay for the medical treatment you need. The answer depends on the circumstances of the accident. In the immediate aftermath of the crash, you might need to rely on your own health insurance company or any medical payment insurance coverage associated with your auto insurance.
In the longer term, those responsible for your injuries, such as the truck driver and trucking company, might be legally liable for the costs of your medical treatment. To seek financial accountability, you’ll need help. An experienced truck accident attorney at David Blackwell Law can discuss your legal options and help you pursue a fair settlement.
What Treatment Will I Need After a Truck Accident?
Truck accidents can cause serious injuries. Accident victims often need extensive treatment to help them recover. Depending on the circumstances, you might require:
- Emergency medical attention: You may need emergency treatment if you suffered severe or life-threatening injuries in a truck crash, including treatment from paramedics and treatment in an emergency room, such as suturing wounds or setting broken bones.
- Surgeries: Severe truck accident injuries may also require surgery to repair fractured bones or treat internal organ injuries and bleeding.
- Hospitalization: Truck accident victims often require hospitalization to recover from surgeries or severe injuries, such as traumatic brain injuries or internal injuries.
- Wound care: Severe lacerations and burns may require intensive wound care to avoid infection and ensure the skin heals appropriately to reduce the chances of scarring.
- Pain management care: Truck accident victims often need help managing pain from injuries or disabilities, including prescription pain medication or trigger point injections.
- Doctor’s appointments: Truck accident victims may need follow-up appointments with medical providers to monitor the progress of their recovery.
- Physical therapy: Physical therapy can help those injured restore or maintain strength and range of motion in injured body parts.
- Occupational therapy: Occupational therapy helps people who suffer long-term impairment learn adaptations to perform daily tasks such as eating, bathing, working, and completing household chores.
- Speech therapy: Truck accident victims who suffer severe traumatic brain injuries or facial injuries may require speech therapy to restore the ability to speak, read, or understand language.
- Mental health therapy: A truck accident may cause a crash victim to develop post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, or depression, necessitating talk therapy, group therapy, or medication.
Who Could Be Responsible for Your Medical Bills in A Truck Accident?
In commercial truck accidents, multiple insurance policies may provide coverage of your losses, depending on the circumstances of the truck accident. These include the following:
- Your Personal Health Insurance: Your health insurer can cover the cost of medical care you need for truck accident injuries. However, this coverage is subject to co-pays and deductibles. Your health insurance company may seek reimbursement from any settlement you obtain through a personal injury claim.
- Your Personal Injury Protection (PIP) Insurance: PIP insurance provides benefits to policyholders and their passengers in the event of a motor vehicle accident, regardless of fault. It typically pays for medical bills and lost wages. PIP is optional insurance in South Carolina, but it’s a good idea to have it. PIP coverage can help pay your medical bills, even if you caused the crash.
- The Truck Driver: A trucker who causes an accident due to negligent or reckless driving may bear liability for accident victims’ medical bills. You would file an insurance claim with the liability insurance of the at-fault driver for the cost of your medical expenses and related costs.
- The Trucking Company: Trucking companies may bear employer liability when an employee causes an accident while performing their job. Trucking companies may also bear direct responsibility for a truck accident caused by their own negligence or recklessness, such as negligently retaining a truck driver with a checkered driving record or pressuring drivers to engage in dangerous driving behaviors such as exceeding hours-of-service limits.
- Government Agencies: In rare cases, state government agencies may bear liability in a truck accident caused by negligent road maintenance or road design. Proving an exception to the state government’s immunity from civil suits is challenging. However, you may have a right to seek compensation if a truck crashes into you due to a dangerous condition on the highway.
Pursuing Compensation for Medical Bills
How you go about pursuing compensation for your medical bills after a truck accident in South Carolina will depend on the specific facts of the accident. For example, you may submit bills for outstanding medical expenses to your own health insurance provider initially in order to receive medical care and pay medical bills. Your insurer can impose a lien on any compensation you might recover down the road through a personal injury claim. The lien entitles your health insurer to reimbursement for any money it paid for your medical care from the financial recovery you obtain.
You can also file a claim with your auto insurance company if you have PIP or other first-party coverage, like MedPay. Your auto insurance provider can reimburse you for medical bills you submit up to the limits of your coverage.
Finally, if the truck driver or the trucking company is at fault, you can file a claim against their insurance. The at-fault party’s insurance provider will investigate your claim to determine if its policyholder bears liability for the accident and your injuries. If the insurance company determines that they do, it may agree to negotiate a settlement to cover your medical expenses.
Trucking and insurance companies may try to deny responsibility for the truck accident or dispute the extent of your injuries. In that case, you may need an experienced personal injury attorney to file a lawsuit on your behalf to pursue compensation for your medical bills. South Carolina Attorney David Blackwell is an experienced negotiator and is often successful in settling personal injury cases without having to go to trial. If an insurance company refuses to agree to a fair settlement, he will be prepared to go to court and present your case to a judge and jury.
Get in Touch with a Truck Accident Attorney in Lancaster, SC
Do you need help paying for your medical bills following a truck accident someone else caused in Lancaster, South Carolina? Contact David Blackwell Law today for a free, no-obligation consultation. David Blackwell Law can review the details of your accident and discuss your legal rights and whether filing a personal injury claim is a good option in your situation. Let us deal with the insurance companies so you can concentrate on healing.
