Car Accident

August 14, 2019

When Your Health Insurance Company Won’t Pay Your Bills, What You Should Do?

by William K. Berenson

Health insurance company medical bills

A health insurance company must pay medical bills, right? No, not always.

We are often hired by people justifiably angry after their Blue Cross-Blue Shield plan declined to pay for their amulance, hospital, and doctor bills. You have to pay expensive premiums and high deductibles and co-pays. So it is natural to assume that after you are in a car or truck collision in North Texas, that your health insurance company will pay for your medical bills. But unfortunately, it often won’t. But you won’t know this for months.

So the best thing for you to do after being in a wreck is to hire a good personal injury lawyer immediately. He will fight to get your medical bills paid or lowered by your health insurance company and your damages paid by the other driver’s liability insurance company. And if you don’t have health insurance, he can get you treated by qualified doctors and pay for some of them up front or guarantee payment so they are repaid from your insurance settlement or jury verdict. It’s a win-win for you.

July 30, 2019

Herniated and Bulging Disks: What Should You Do?

by William K. Berenson

MRI Most people who are in car and truck accidents suffer from neck and back pain. Sometimes after undergoing diagnostic tests, they find out that the cushion-like disks that separate the bones (vertebrae) in their backbones have been damaged. This especially happens in rear-end collisions. Your doctor may have told you that you have one or more herniated and bulging disks. This post discusses what this means and what you can do about these often serious medical problems.

A herniated disk happens if the outside of the annulus fibrosis, the disk’s outer cover, ruptures or tears. Some of the soft nucleus puplosus, the jelly-like material inside the disk that gives it the shock-absorbing quality to protect your vertebrae, leaks out.

Sometimes it escapes into the spinal canal, often contacting a spinal nerve root. Enormous pain and other symptoms can result.

Herniated disks progress in stages going from smaller to the most extreme: prolapsing, protruding, extruding, to sequestering. In that last state, the material inside the disk has severed from the disc.

They are also referred to as ruptured or slipped disks and the pain can be called a pinched nerve.

Adding to the complexity of a correct diagnosis, herniated disks do not always cause extreme discomfort. At other times, the symptoms are more like those from bulging disks that are described below.

Further, while they can be caused by the sudden trauma of being crashed into by another vehicle, they can also be caused by aging, falls, other injuries, or other factors.

July 12, 2019

Fifth Circuit Mocks Insurance Company For Refusing To Pay Punitive Damages

by William K. Berenson

New decision is a rare victory for plaintiffs

If you are injured in a crash caused by someone driving while intoxicated, file a lawsuit, and receive a punitive damages award from a jury, will you be paid? A surprising federal court ruling from the country’s most conservative federal appellate court of the 13 circuits decisively answered that question.

Background: Carlos Sanchez got drunk at a bar in San Antonio, ran a red light, and slammed into this car driven by Richard Frederking in 2004. Sanchez pled guilty to DWI.

July 9, 2019

Rollover Accidents More Common In These Types of Vehicles

by William K. Berenson

BLOG-W-FT-W-CRASH-FRI Deadly car and truck accidents happen across the DFW area almost every day. One happened near our office last week when an SUV rolled over on I-30 which critically injured several people and took the life of a 22-year-old woman. Here’s a photograph from the scene. And on Sunday night, two people were ejected from a truck in a rollover accident east of Dallas. Since rollovers accidents have the highest fatality rate of any collision, this is an important public safety topic for all of us.

Causes of rollover accidents

Rollovers happen for a number of reasons and are more complex from a liability viewpoint than other vehicle accidents.

July 3, 2019

How To Stay Safe Over July 4th Weekend

by William K. Berenson

On Independence Day we celebrate the birth of our great nation and the best form of government that has even been invented — democracy. The holiday is a highlight of the summer and can be a lot of fun. But July 4th is also the most dangerous day of the year according to the National Safety Council. There are so many ways people can get injured. This blog and our commercial truck blog are always trying to keep people from being injured, so here are some useful tips about how to stay safe this weekend.

1. Cars, trucks, and motorcycles

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Let’s start with the only cases we handle. There are more crashes over the July 4th weekend that at other times of the year. Sadly, 42 Texans lost their lives on July 4th or the day before last year in motor vehicle collisions. Here’s why.

June 27, 2019

Speeding Causes Death of Dallas Girl

by William K. Berenson

When three drivers are speeding at 100 mph, a deadly crash is inevitable

There is no excuse for driving too fast. Anytime you do, you put yourself, your passengers, and every one else on the road at tremendous risk. People who speed will crash into other vehicles at a much higher rate of speed, set off violent chain reactions, and cause injuries and even deaths. These become heart-breaking stories, like what happened recently in a Dallas crash that tragically ended the life of a 9-year-old girl.

Olivia Mendez was in a car that was making a left turn at Lake June Road in Dallas. She had just graduated from her school that evening and was almost home. But three muscle cars were speeding down the road from the other direction. The driver of a Dodge Challenger couldn’t stop in time and slammed into the girl’s car, throwing her from it. Her parents and her 3-year-old sister were also seriously injured. The police arrested the three racers and I hope they get long sentences. But nothing can replace the life of this sweet young child. We made a donation to the family’s GoFundMe site and hope you can as well.

October 5, 2018

Head and Brain Injuries After a Car Accident

by William K. Berenson

It is common for people to have head and brain injuries after a car accident. Although these injuries vary in severity, when it comes to your brain, they are never minor and should not be ignored. The brain is your body’s control center. You need it to move, to think, and to breathe. And a traumatic brain injury can be severely debilitating and lead to a coma, lifetime paralysis, or even death.

More than half of all traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) are caused by vehicle accidents. They can occur in one of two ways. Some injuries occur from blunt force trauma, when the person’s head strikes something, usually the steering wheel or door. When people don’t buckle up, they are at a greater risk of striking their head during an accident.

The second way that people get TBIs from car accidents is from the force of the impact. If the impact is strong enough, it can cause the brain to move around inside the skull. When the brain hits against the bones of the skull, it can cause bruising and bleeding that often isn’t visible at the time. The jolt can cause the brain to pull loose from connective tissue that holds it inside the skull. This results in an injury to that area as well.

A health insurance company must pay medical bills, right? No, not always.

What is a herniated disk?

New decision is a rare victory for plaintiffs

Causes of rollover accidents

1. Cars, trucks, and motorcycles

When three drivers are speeding at 100 mph, a deadly crash is inevitable