How to Request an Itemized Bill for Costs Related to My Car Accident

When you’re involved in a car accident, your life becomes complicated very quickly. If you sustain serious injuries, you interact with hospitals, doctors, and other medical personnel every day. When you’re hurt, you must still resolve vehicle repair issues. While you won’t consider it immediately, at some future time you will wonder how to request an itemized bill for costs related to my accident. 

When you work with our car accident lawyers at Baker Legal Team, we examine your bills and review the documentation that supports all of your claims. Our attorneys can obtain your itemized bills, but, in most cases, you can get them faster while avoiding authorization complications. As the party responsible for paying for the services provided, you have a legal right to obtain an itemization of services rendered. In providing these detailed bills to you, medical providers and vehicle repair shops must comply with statutory time frames.

How to Request Itemized Medical Bills

In Florida, a patient has a legal right to obtain itemized copies of their medical bills, but they must request them. Upon discharge or dismissal, if a patient requests an itemized bill, the medical facility must send it within seven days. If you request it at a later time, they must send it within seven days of the request date.

Unless a patient requests an itemized bill, healthcare providers usually send them directly to the patient’s insurance company. They usually require patients to assign their claim payment rights to the facility that provided medical services. This gives providers authority to bill insurers and receive payments on a patient’s behalf. Care providers do this because they realize that insurance companies are the entities most likely to pay them.

When you’re injured in a car accident, your Personal Injury Protection coverage provides the primary coverage for your treatment. Doctors, hospitals, and other providers send your itemized bills directly to your PIP insurer. Unless you have an unpaid balance, you may never see your bill. If you do receive a bill for services, it will likely include only copays, deductible amounts, or uninsured balances.

How To Request an Itemized Bill for Vehicle Damages

When you take your car into a shop for repairs after an accident, you should not have to request an itemized bill. The shop must give you an itemized repair estimate before doing the work. After repairing your car, they must provide an itemized bill showing what work they completed. If the shop doesn’t give you a bill when you pick up your repaired vehicles, they should be able to print a detailed bill on demand. 

Itemized bills must adhere to certain stipulations, such as:  

• A shop can’t make repairs without a customer’s expressed or implied permission. 
• When they complete the repairs, the shop must give the owner a legible copy of the invoice. 
• A repair invoice must include the date, repair shop information, vehicle odometer reading, a statement showing what was done, all labor and parts, replacement parts used, any parts guarantees, and other details.  
• Invoices must show if a shop bills customers based on a flat rate, an hourly rate, or a combination. 
• Invoices must detail any fees for shop supplies, hazardous waste removal, or any legally mandated charge. 
• A shop cannot substitute used, rebuilt, salvaged, or straightened parts for new replacement parts without advising the owner. When a vehicle owner provides a claims adjuster’s name, they must also notify the insurance company. 
• Vehicle repair shops must obtain the owner’s consent before subcontracting any repairs to another repair shop.

These guidelines apply to all types of vehicle repair shops, including body shops that restore vehicles damaged in car accidents. 

Contact Experienced Car Accident Attorneys at Baker Legal Team 

When you’re involved in a serious accident, you need experienced car accident attorneys to protect your legal rights. When you establish a working relationship with Baker Legal Team, we can determine if a negligent driver owes you compensation. We investigate your accident and analyze the liability issues. When appropriate, we intervene with liability and first-party insurance companies to recover damages on your behalf.  

Our board-certified car accident lawyers have recovered compensation for many clients over the years. If someone injures you in a car crash or any other type of accident, contact us for a complimentary consultation. You may reach us at (561) 320-0000 or leave a message on our contact page.