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