CINCINNATI, OH - Matt Garretson will speak at the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association's Subrogation Seminar 2009 on Friday, February 27 in Denver. The event is co-chaired by Gregory Gold, Esq. and Kyle Bachus, Esq. Below is an article on the presentation from Law Week Colorado.
Subrogation Seminar To Focus On National Insurance Affairs
Ohio Attorney On Tap As Guest Speaker
By Heather Smith
LAW WEEK COLORADO
DENVER -- Effective July 1, personal injury attorneys will be required to adhere to new rules regarding reimbursements to insurance companies under the Medicare, Medicaid and the SCHIP Extension Act 2007. These rules, which pertain to subrogation, change every year because of statute and case law.
“In 2003, Colorado changed from a no-fault to tort state and before then the trial attorneys rarely had to deal with subrogation issues in practice,” said Greg Gold, an attorney at Kiel & Trueax in Greenwood Village who is coordinating the seminar. “Now every automobile case in the state involves one form or another of subrogation.”
To help attorneys, judges, legal staff and students understand the new rules, Matthew Garretson, an Ohio attorney whose firm focuses on health care lien resolutions both single-event and mass tort cases, will be the guest speaker at the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association’s Subrogation Seminar on Feb. 27.
“[Garretson] is really the national expert on subrogation,” Gold said. “This year we’ve really centered in on a national speaker to speak on national issues more than we have in the past.”
This is the fifth year for the seminar, and its goal “is to make it simple and easy to understand the new rules and to provide usable documents and forms people can go to work with right away in the practice,” Gold said. “It’s an area of the law nobody likes, but everyone has to deal with every day.”
In the simplest terms, subrogation means an action that an insurance company would take to make sure the party responsible for the injury pays for it. Medicare, Medicaid, ERISA and non-ERISA health insurance companies all deal with subrogation differently.
In an interview with Law Week Colorado, Garretson provided the following example: “If I am injured in a personal injury accident – let’s say an automobile accident – I go to the hospital, and I use my health care to pay for injury- related care. But, let’s say two years from then, I end up settling a lawsuit against a third party. The law says I must repay the health insurance company out of my settlement. Your health insurer wants its money back. It could be private insurance or Medicare or Medicaid. There’s a variety that have rights to be reimbursed. It’s quite a complex process, ensuring that the injury-related claim in only reimbursed.”
Garretson, is the founder of Garretson Firm Resolution Group in Cincinnati. At the end of January, the firm, as the lien reimbursement administrator, helped resolve a $4.85 billion settlement between Vioxx claimants and insurance companies. About 50,000 personal injury lawsuits were filed against Drugmaker Merck & Co. after the painkiller was found to increase the risk of heart attack, stroke and death in 2004. The case was settled in 2007, which then led to the January settlement between claimants and their insurance companies that were seeking to receive a percentage of the 2007 settlement.
On Jan. 22, the Associated Press reported that insurance companies could get a maximum of 15 percent of a $100,000 settlement and 10 percent of any settlement $250,000 or higher.
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