In Florida, everyone is required to have Personal Injury Protection (PIP) which pays for 80 percent of medical bills and 60 percent of lost wages. Under the current law, PIP pays $2,500 towards your medical bills if there is NOT an emergency medical condition or $10,000 if there IS an emergency medical condition. The law then defined emergency medical condition and put certain conditions on what type of doctor could make the emergency medical condition finding (a medical doctor, doctor of osteopathics, amongst other types of providers). A second part of the law that was changed that went into effect on January 1, 2013 states that there must be some form of treatment, whether at the hospital OR with a medical provider WITHIN 14 DAYS OF THE DATE OF THE ACCIDENT, otherwise PIP would not have to pay any of the medical bills. To some degree, this law was passed as some people were treating for accidents for the first time several years after the accident. The law needed to decide on some dividing line and it picked 14 days as the time frame.
So what is important to understand is that if you have been in an accident in Florida, YOU MUST go to the hospital or to a medical provider and treat for the accident within 14 days otherwise your PIP insurance will not have to pay your medical bills. Particularly in instances where an injured person in an accident does not have health insurance, this is very, very important. If you have any questions about the law, please feel free to call me, Gary Drucker, and I will be glad to discuss this with you.
