Hospitals and other healthcare facilities use medical liens to provide medical attention to those in need and ensure that they’re paid for their services. Unfortunately, not every patient is attentive to paying off their medical lien. In addition to breaking down what a medical lien is and who is eligible to place one, Apogee Capital Partners reviews the top reasons to sell your medical lien-protected receivables as a healthcare professional or provider.
What Is a Lien?
A lien is a demand for payment of a service or goods provided to an individual who could not cover the expenses at the time. Liens ensure that individuals, groups, and companies get compensated for whatever acts or products they’ve offered.
To put it simply, a lien is an IOU between two parties in the form of a public document.
What Is a Medical Lien?
In this article, we’ll focus primarily on medical liens—but what is a medical lien? Medical liens are issued when someone receives emergency surgery, treatment, or other forms of medical attention without providing immediate payment. They ensure that healthcare providers are paid for the care they’ve provided.
Medical liens are commonly issued following a personal injury accident. An unsuspecting victim of an incident who doesn’t have insurance may find it impossible to pay for emergency services. Instead of refusing service, hospitals will place a lien on that individual, then that individual can use those medical lien receivables for their personal injury claim.
Why Medical Liens Are a Good Thing
People Can Receive Care Without Worry
Medical liens allow people suffering physical damage from accidents to receive emergency medical care without hesitation. Because the U.S. doesn’t offer universal healthcare, many individuals fear that healthcare providers may turn them away or slap them with an insurmountable bill. A medical lien allows someone who wasn’t at fault for their injuries to get the proper care they need and time to acquire a fair settlement check to cover the service. Patients can also learn about the benefits of pre-settlement funding to help them pay their medical bills.
Healthcare Providers Are Promised Payment for Their Service
Healthcare facilities have a range of steep expenses to cover. The cost of medical treatment and care helps medical facilities with the upkeep of their operational costs.
When a patient cannot pay their medical bills, this leaves hospitals and other healthcare locations at a loss. A medical lien, however, guarantees that healthcare providers will see the payment they are owed for their services.
Limitations Around Medical Liens
Medical care providers can’t request lien receivables for any amount or at any time. Hospitals must abide by the following requirements to place a medical lien against a patient’s personal injury settlement.
- Hospitals and other healthcare facilities must file the medical lien within 180 days of the patient’s release from their care.
- The lien must have the patient’s accurate name, address, dates of service, and proper name and address of the location of service.
- The lien amount may not exceed 40 percent of the total settlement check that the patient receives from their personal injury claim.
Who Can Hold a Medical Lien?
Healthcare professionals and healthcare providers place and hold medical liens. Healthcare providers include providers from any of the following.
- Licensed hospital
- Licensed home health agency
- Licensed ambulatory surgical treatment center
- Licensed long term care facilities
- Licensed emergency medical services personnel
In the medical lien world, the phrase “healthcare professionals” refers to therapists, physicians, and other specialized doctors.
What Determines How Long It Takes To Resolve a Medical Lien?
Patients can repay medical care providers for their services once legal representatives reach a settlement for the personal injury claim. There are several factors that influence how quickly or slowly settlements are reached. Ample paperwork from various parties is one reason settlements and the fulfillment of medical liens may get delayed.
What Are the Benefits of Selling Your Medical Lien Portfolio?
So what are the reasons to sell your medical lien-protected receivables? Over the years, your medical lien portfolio will start to expand due to an accumulation of uninsured patients who were unable to pay for your care at the time of service. Medical liens often take 18 plus months to resolve, leaving medical care facilities left to cover their operational costs without payment for their services.
Fortunately, as a medical care provider, you have the option of selling your medical lien-protected receivables. When you sell a portfolio of receivables, you’re essentially outsourcing your servicing and collections at no additional costs. This is highly advantageous to those with a cumbersome portfolio of liens. If you need some incentive to sell your receivables, we’ve listed a few benefits of doing so below.
- You receive an immediate cash flow to support business expansion and daily operations.
- You can redirect your attention back to active services rather than dwelling on previous patients and lack of payments.
- You eliminate the risk of non-collections (write-offs) and reduce collection costs.
- Selling receivables is off-balance sheet financing.
- Buyers verify a time frame during which they’ll pay you, so there’s no aggravating or unpredictable wait time for your money.
Other Types of Liens
There are many other types of liens other than the medical kind. Two other common types of IOUs include workers’ compensation liens and government liens.
Workers’ Compensation Liens
A workers’ compensation lien is issued when an individual acquires injuries at work and the state’s workers’ comp fund covers the medical bills for those injuries. Workers’ comp lien amounts amount to whatever the fund puts toward your medical expenses.
Government Liens
When government helps an individual cover their medical costs, they have a right to issue that person a lien. The injured individual will reimburse the government once the party at fault has compensated the cost of damages.
Where To Sell Your Medical Lien-protected Receivables
Do the reasons to sell your medical lien-protected receivables have you on the search for somewhere to sell your lien portfolio? Apogee Capital Partners will gladly work with those in the healthcare industry to acquire reimbursement for their services.
Our medical lien servicing aims to get you the money that patients owe and remove the need to track down former patients. Our variety of lien financing services allow medical care providers to offer immediate medical attention to those in need without fretting over a lack of payment.
Based on pre-negotiated fee structures we configure with you ahead of time, Apogee Capital Partners can get you your reimbursement in as little as three business days. Contact us today to learn more about our medical lien purchasing process so you can relieve yourself of your medical lien-protected receivables.
