To encourage hospitals to treat accident victims, Alabama has a hospital lien law that mandates hospitals be paid directly out of any recovery from an injury case. The good news… Hospital liens are negotiable with the right injury lawyer! We regularly negotiate these liens as part of the representation of clients that have been injured in a motorcycle crash.
This hospital lien is not on any personal property that the injured party may own like cars, house, etc.. It is just a lien on the case itself. The exact code section is Ala. Code § 35-11-370.
Practically speaking, this means that when reaching a settlement in a motorcycle injury case (or any other type of injury case), a hospital MUST be paid out of any recovery from the case unless its bill has already been paid for and satisfied by the injured party’s health insurance company. In which case, the health insurance company will instead likely be reimbursed for what it paid the hospital from the settlement. For more details on this, you can see our post How does health insurance subrogation impact my injury case?.
The good news is that these hospital liens are negotiable and an experienced injury lawyer will know the ins-and-outs of the Alabama hospital lien law to ensure that his or her client maximizes the amount of money received from the settlement after paying the hospital. As we always say, our firm’s job is to not only fill the pot up as much as possible by negotiating a fair settlement but also to keep as much in that pot at the end of day.