Traumatic Brain Injury Therapy – How Can I Pay For It?
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In 2017, a woman in her mid 40s came to see me for help. She had been rear-ended by a large commercial vehicle and began to suffer serious symptoms, included headaches, memory issues, and confusion. Eventually, she underwent some testing and discovered that she had suffered a traumatic brain injury.
This woman was a single mother of three and not in a financial position to pay for the care that was necessary to her recovery. Fortunately, we were able to get a good settlement, but it’s still important to explain the three options available because a situation like this may not apply to everybody.
Private Pay
For those people who are able to afford some or all of the care, what we found is the most helpful, is the TBI victim will have a joint bank account with the person taking care of them. Now, this doesn’t mean the provider has access to the bank account. What we’ve seen is a trusted family member or trusted caregiver is the one that needs to have control of the account and make the payments.
A second option for private pay is the trust. In this situation, there’s a person called the trustee, that makes payments for the benefit of the beneficiary. In this case, that would be the TBI victim.
In those cases, there can be downside to a trust because you need to hire a lawyer to set this up and that can be costly. You want to avoid paperwork mistakes or anything else that can you slow the process down.
Medicaid
Medicaid is funded by the federal government, but it’s administered and run through the state. In Texas, we do have a Medicaid program. In some cases, a Medicaid waiver program may be able to help. This is a program that can pay for certain disabilities, like a TBI victim may have, through the state.
If the TBI victim is about to be or has recently been discharged from the hospital, it is important to speak with the hospital case manager or a social worker about the services in your community that the TBI victim might be eligible to receive and use to pay for their therapy.
Medicare
Medicare is a federal government program that is run by the Social Security Administration and pays disability benefits for qualifying persons. Those disability benefits can either pay the TBI victim to replace the income that is lost, or it can be used to pay for the medical treatment that is needed.
The important thing to remember is there are funding options available besides just private pay, although that is usually the easiest route if the funds are readily available.
