Medicaid and Ahlborn

If you are covered by Medicaid when you are injured, the law says you have “assigned” a part of your claim to the State of Texas. Sometimes this recovery by the State is referred to as subrogation. That means that you may have to pay back part of what you recover to the State of Texas to compensate the State for what it has paid in medical bills. Until recently, the State got first money back, regardless of whether there was enough money to truly compensate you for your losses.
 
However, the United States Supreme Court has recently held in the case of Arkansas Department of Health and Human Service, et al  Vs. Heidi Ahlborn, that the State can only recover the portion of money that is attributable to medical expenses. In those instances where there is not adequate insurance to cover all your losses, we may be able to reduce the amount of money that must be repaid to the State. The Office of the Attorney General handles these matters and can be very insistent on recovering as much of the insurance proceeds as are available. One of the most important services an attorney may provide is keeping as much money as possible for the client.