Denied ERISA Short-Term Disability Benefits? Follow This Appeal Checklist
No one wants to get a claim denial letter from the insurance company for their short-term disability benefits. Unfortunately, it’s a far too common occurrence. Many people with legitimate disability insurance claims are denied benefits and then have to appeal their insurer’s decision. If you’re thinking about filing an appeal with your short-term disability carrier, …
Why Was My Loved One’s Long-Term Care Insurance Claim Denied?
As we age, our chances of needing long-term care increase—and about 53% of us will need some form of long-term care for more than a year. In 2020, the average cost of a private room in an Illinois nursing home was $84,312. In the greater Chicago area, it cost $102,384. Even if you have significant …
5 Ways Your Healthcare Organization Can Reduce Payer Denials
If your healthcare organization experiences double-digit denial rates, you are not alone. In 2020, the average denial rate for hospitals was roughly 11% for initial claims. This means that you are spending a remarkable amount of your practice’s resources on appeals and collection efforts—and some of these denials will not be recoverable. Our physician and medical …
4 Things Doctors Need to Know About Provider-Payer Disputes
Our healthcare environment becomes more complex every year. While your organization may feel comfortable handling some provider-payer issues in-house, many medical groups are discovering that the insurance companies and other payers are becoming more aggressive with cost-cutting tactics. Whether payers are reducing your payments under a “value-based care” model or disputing the necessity of care, …
Common Reasons for Denial of Short-Term Disability Benefits
In the short-term disability insurance context, it’s rather common for disability claimants to feel as though their insurer is mishandling their claim — and this belief is certainly not formed without good reason. Insurers are fundamentally incentivized to deny, delay, and otherwise mishandle short-term disability claims so that they don’t have to payout the benefits …
Lincoln Financial Disability Appeals: Avoid These Common Mistakes
If you’re like many Illinois residents, you have employer-sponsored benefits from Lincoln Financial Group — and you may be running into red tape or other difficulties with your insurance adjuster. At Bryant Legal Group, we have extensive experience handling Lincoln Financial long-term disability (LTD) claims, and we want to share our unique insights. Keep reading to …
ERISA Appeal Best Practices
Experienced ERISA Denial of Benefits Attorney The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) was enacted in the 1970s with the intention of protecting plan beneficiaries from fund mismanagement and fiduciary manipulation, but has now grown into a much broader regulation that covers all aspects of the benefits claim submission and administrative appeal (through Department of …
Wrongful Denial of Benefits for Long-Term Care
Though many policyholders forget, it’s important to recognize that insurers are always looking to maximize their profits — and this typically involves a strategy of minimizing their expenses by developing policies that justify the denial of seemingly legitimate claims. The easier it is to justify the denial of an insurance claim, the less likely it …
Common Issues in Business Overhead Expense Insurance Disputes
Chicago Insurance Attorney Insurers frequently act in ways that are hostile to the interests of a policyholder, in part because they hope that they can reduce their liabilities by forcing a policyholder to stop pursuing an otherwise legitimate claim for benefits. This is especially true in the business overhead expense (BOE) insurance context, where the …
Common Life Insurance Beneficiary Disputes
In the context of life insurance, it’s not at all that uncommon for the beneficiaries to be in conflict with one another — after all, the benefits amounts may be significant, and there may be inconsistencies in the distribution of benefits that were not known to the beneficiary prior to the death of their loved …