Ensuring you are adequately compensated
When formulating a personal injury statement of claim, lawyers consider multiple categories of loss.
This is to ensure that you are appropriately and adequately compensated for the full extent of your injuries and losses – past, present and future.
This includes seeking to recover all injury-related costs paid ‘out of pocket’, by you, such as hospital bills, physiotherapy appointments and sessions with your psychologist.
Medicare, Centrelink, Private Health and your Personal Injury Compensation Settlement.
Your compensation lawyer also needs to consider that as part of this expenditure recovery, there may need to be money repaid to Medicare, Centrelink and/or your private health insurer.
This is for any payments those entities covered or subsidised in relation to your injury.
If you are receiving compensation for your losses, Medicare, Centrelink and your private health insurer must be notified.
How Is Repayment Made?
Any Medicare, Centrelink or private health payments will be reimbursed to the relevant entity out of the settlement sum, upon conclusion of your matter.
How Is the Repayment Calculated?
History Statement
In the case of both Medicare and your private health insurer, the amount that is repaid from the settlement sum is calculated by way of a ‘history statement.’
The History Statement shows the benefit claimed by you from the date of your injury to the date of settlement.
You confirm which benefits on the history statement relate to the compensable injury and from there, Medicare and/or your private health insurer will calculate the amount that needs to be repaid by you.
You Can Request History Statements
Both Medicare and your private health insurer will issue history statements periodically upon request, until your injuries have stabilised and your matter has settled.
Double Dipping
The benefit received has to be repaid to the various entities to avoid ‘double dipping’.
This is because when formulating your claim, the full cost of treatments and services you have undertaken are included in the settlement sum. Therefore, if Medicare and/or your private health insurer were not repaid the amount they had subsidised in advance of settlement, you would be receiving more than the amount you actually paid out of pocket.
Centrelink
If you receive or have received any social security payments from Centrelink since your injury, these may also be recovered, however any repayment is assessed and calculated by Centrelink on a ‘case by case’ basis.
If you have any questions about a personal injury matter, or you would like to discuss your repayment requirements in more detail, please do not hesitate to contact our office on (08) 8410 9294 or via this form.