The option of a medical lien is designed to ensure that people are able to receive immediate health care treatment while they await the outcome of their personal injury trial. With a Doctor lien, physicians agree with the patient that fees for treatment will stay postponed pending the conclusion of the trial. In order to better ensure that promised payments will be made, Health care liens are more common amongst third party injury cases where the applying patient appears to be the innocent victim. Examples of such scenarios include injuries sustained in personal injury accidents such as those found in product liability, slip and fall scenarios, car accidents and a lot more.

However, despite the noble intentions behind the creation of medical lien agreements, there are several factors which caused many doctors and hospitals to become wary about permitting the acceptance of its use.

Unpredictable Payment Duration:

When it comes to legal proceedings of a court room, time is not a valued factor. Court cases all too often go on for many long years before an eventual decision is reached. Pending the conclusion of this lengthy legal transaction, most hospitals are duty bound to continue without their payment. Hospitals have no legal authority to “force” payments until the outcome of a case has been reached. The financial implication of this prolonged payment is often more than most physicians are able to deal with. Most of the doctors and physicians, who initially were open to accepting cases of medical liens, have quickly come to find that this can gravely affect their operational cost and balance.

The Lack of Guaranty offered: Despite their best intentions individuals sometimes find that they are unable to uphold their end of the agreement. Occurrences such as these are more common amongst individuals who end up losing their personal injury suits. Unlike the contingency agreement between a lawyer and his client wherein an attorney forfeits his fees in the eventuality of a loss, no such agreement exists in the writs of a lien. People will still be required to address their hospital bills even if they lose their battle in court. This however does not always occur.

Unnecessary delays: agreed payments in a lien are expected to be made immediately as soon as a case has been completed. Unfortunately this rarely occurs. Instead, insurance houses tend to hold back the release of these fees on some procedural clause. Doctors are thus forced to keep waiting for their promised funds while insurance houses continue to benefit from incoming interest gained from the settlement figures which are still being held. Needless to say, most doctors are left frustrated and often make it a point to avoid future lien agreements of this nature.

An effective solution to most of the problems experienced by the health care providers is to sell medical liens to a medical liens funding company. These medical liens funding services, act as intermediaries between the patient and clinic providing the funds needed by the hospital even before a case has begun. The funding company then goes on to secure the agreed payments of a lien from the patient via the insurance company that has been charged with the provision of the settlement.