My Doctor told me to go to AICA after my Accident

We have had a stunning number of clients who have health insurance get referred to AICA in Atlanta by their primary care physicians. Even my doctors at Piedmont Physicians are doing this with our clients? What is going on here?

For years primary care doctors have refused to see even established patients after car accidents under the mistaken belief that health insurance will not pay. This is in error. Health insurance pays for medical bills after a car accident, they just are secondary to your own medical payments coverage, IF YOU HAVE IT. As an apparent result we now have multiple clients who are being turned away and sent to AICA instead.  Even though your PCP should see you, you are unlikely to talk them into it, so what to do?

The best course of action is to use your health insurance to go to an orthopedist who is covered under your plan. Why? The problem with AICA is that in every case we have seen, AICA will not bill your health insurance and instead tells the patient that they will just bill the at fault driver’s insurance. This sounds helpful on its face, but its not.

Why? Because the AICA bills our clients are getting are enormous and those bills come out of the client’s settlement. In other words, YOU end up paying for it at sticker price. If the bill had been run through health insurance, there are massive member discounts on pricing for bills and even after reimbursing healthcare, the savings to you would be enormous. What SHOULD you do?

You should be choosing your own doctor if you have health insurance and that Doctor should comply with their health insurance contract and bill it at the reduced rate.

The industry of ambulance chasing lawyers has spawned a race for clients and AICA’s own website demonstrates the pattern of trying to get the patient in and then referring the to one of their “preferred attorneys.”

“However, calling a lawyer before calling a Chiropractor could jeopardize your ability to receive a fair settlement. You should always call one of our Atlanta chiropractors first!” -AICA homepage.

Be careful out there. There are a great many providers who simply don’t tell you the whole truth.