A meeting of the minds, and a viable settlement.
“…among the most completely impenetrable texts within human experience. Indeed, one approaches them… with dread, for not only are they dense reading of the most tortuous kind, but Congress also revisits the area frequently… making any [prior] understanding of the subject hazardous.”
Anticipating what only the government controls.
Medicare Secondary Payer compliance is a difficult task because much of what we do is in anticipation of something which may or may not occur sometime in the distant future, after liabilities have been released and earmarked funds changed hands long ago, and only Medicare and its beneficiary are in control of what may come. We voluntarily ask the government for an opinion about a settlement that it is not a party to and not bound by its terms, and that opinion is voluntarily provided without any statutory or regulatory support and little to no recourse if you disagree with it, because as we just said, no law requires that it provide that opinion in the first place. Then when a problem does arise and the parties turn to the courts for help, they often find out that suing the government is no easy task, or that what they thought they bargained for in the settlement was not really memorialized in a way that the courts could enforce. It can be very unsettling, to say the least, when you believed you did everything possible to “protect Medicare's interests”, and then find out that you failed to protect the interests of another party involved.
Opinions, plain-language explanation, and expert testimony.
At Sparx, our experienced MSP professionals have been involved in the evolution of the MSP program at CMS since the beginning, and recognize potential problems that lawyers who don't focus on MSP compliance might not fully understand. If you want a second opinion about your settlement language, or need a neutral third party to explain the MSP issues in the context of your settlement to the parties in language everyone understands, Sparx has legal professionals available to provide a written opinion or participate in a conference call, whatever you need to help reach a meeting of the minds and a viable settlement.
Additionally, our Chief Legal Counsel has extensive experience providing expert testimony in MSP compliance, should your needs already be in litigation.
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