By: Ken David, Esq.

Let’s
make something hard a little bit easier. We are still confronted with the
challenge of how to deal with Medicare’s interests in many of our settlements,
particularly six figure ones. Although it is certainly possible to write a book
on all the requirements and details of navigating the MSA system, here you will
find a mere five page document that will give you a road map to follow in
determining when you should have an MSA done and when you may need CMS
approval. Any claim you have can only fall into one of four categories so once
you know which category the claim is in, you usually have your answer on what
needs to be done (see page 2). Also, the claimant can now go to a website to
verify where he or she is in the Social Security/Medicare system, negating the
need for the claimant to sign a release in most instances. The claimant can get
you his or her status in literally seconds (see page 1).

Here
is a link to the Medicare Checklist