Special Needs Trusts: Preserving SSI and Medicaid After a PI Settlement
When a personal-injury recovery would push a claimant off SSI and Medicaid, a special needs trust holds the funds without triggering disqua…
Category
Liens & Settlement
Medical liens, Letters of Protection, ERISA/MSP reductions, and settlement-distribution mechanics.
The Federal Recovery Claim PI Firms Forget on Military Clients
The Federal Medical Care Recovery Act and TRICARE give the government an independent right to recover from a PI settlement. It survives you…
Medicaid's Reach Into Future Medicals After Gallardo
Since Gallardo, a state Medicaid agency can recover from the future-medical portion of a settlement, not just past care. Allocation is now…
The Liability Medicare Set-Aside Nobody Wants to Price
Liability Medicare set-asides sit in a regulatory vacuum. Here are the defensible options for future medicals and the reporting exposure th…
Making Lienholders Share the Cost of the Recovery
A lienholder that shares in the settlement should share in the fees and costs that produced it. How the common-fund doctrine works, where p…
The Medicare Advantage Lien That Can Double on You
A Medicare Advantage plan that goes unpaid from a settlement can sue for double what it laid out. Here is how to identify Part C liens, red…
Getting Subrogation Waivers: The Trade Every Carrier Will Actually Make
Carriers rarely waive subrogation because you asked nicely. They waive because you gave them a reason tied to their own exposure or their o…
Hospital Lien Perfection Defects: The Patterns That Save Recovery
California's Hospital Lien Act reads like a short checklist, and hospitals miss items on it constantly. The recurring defects — thin notice…
California Hospital Liens Under Civil Code §§3045.1–3045.6: 2026 Practice
The California Hospital Lien Act gives a hospital that provides emergency care a statutory right to recover from a tort recovery — but the…
Medi-Cal Lien Reduction in PI: The Ahlborn Process and 2026 Practice
The 50-percent statutory default is a starting point, not a settlement. Plaintiff counsel handling Medi-Cal liens after Ahlborn and Wos has…
ERISA Reimbursement in California PI Settlements: The 2026 Practitioner's Guide
ERISA preempts California state law on most reimbursement questions for self-funded employer health plans. That preemption is the whole gam…
Letter of Protection vs. Medical Lien: A California PI Practitioner's Guide
Plaintiff attorneys and providers routinely conflate letters of protection with medical liens. The two have different perfection, priority,…