Our lien reduction policy, published.
We put the reduction policy on the website. Almost nobody does.
Lien reduction is the single biggest friction between a plaintiff firm and everyone holding a piece of the settlement. Attorneys reportedly spend something like a seventh of their working time on it. Almost nobody in this industry will say in advance what they will do — which is exactly why it is worth saying.
Five commitments, and one honest limit.
0. A dropped case is written off
Before any of the rest of this applies: if the case is dropped, dismissed or recovers nothing, the balance goes away. Not negotiated down — written off. Neither the firm nor the client owes us anything, and neither is ever invoiced or sent to collections.
1. You get a written answer, fast
Send the request to medsonliens@gmail.com and you get a number in writing, from the person with authority to give it. Not a queue, not a matrix, not a settlement department in another state.
2. We reduce hardest where the client is squeezed
A policy-limits case where the lien stack exceeds the recovery gets a different answer from a full-value settlement. So does a client whose net would otherwise be unreasonable after fees, costs and everyone else's balances.
3. The reduced number is the final number
If we agree to compromise, that is the end of it. We do not accept a reduction and then pursue the patient for the difference. A reduction with a quiet balance-billing tail is not a reduction, it is a delay.
4. Nobody buys our paper
The receivable stays with the pharmacy. There is no factor arriving at disbursement demanding face value on a balance they bought at a discount, and no third party for the defense to take discovery on.
The honest limit: no published percentage
We will not print a fixed reduction figure, and you should be skeptical of anyone who does. Two reasons. The practical one is that a number set before anyone has seen the recovery, the limits or the rest of the stack is not a policy, it is a guess. The legal one matters more to you: a provider who advertises that it always accepts less invites the argument that the billed amount was never a genuine charge — and that argument lands on your client's damages, not on our balance sheet.
Ask at the demand. Not at the disbursement.
This is the single most useful thing on this page, and it costs your office nothing to act on.
A reduction request that arrives with the disbursement sheet is a request made after every other decision has already been taken — the settlement is agreed, the fee is calculated, the other lienholders have been paid or promised, and the only variable left is us. A request that arrives when the demand goes out is a request made while there is still a negotiation, and it gets a materially better answer.
The same is true in the other direction. Ask us for a running balance any time and you get it the same day, so the number in your demand package is the number that actually exists.
What to send with the request
- The gross recovery, or the range under discussion
- The policy limits, and whether this is a limits case
- The rest of the lien stack — hospital, surgeon, imaging, PT, DME, subrogation
- The projected net to the client after fees and costs
- Anything unusual — comparative fault, a difficult liability picture, a client in hardship
A lienholder who can see the whole picture gives a better number than one being asked to reduce in the dark. This is one paragraph in an email and it is worth real money to your client.
The anchors your office will quote at us anyway.
Two California statutes get cited in almost every lien negotiation, and it is worth being straight that neither one binds a pharmacy.
- Civil Code section 3045.4 caps a hospital's statutory lien at 50% of the amount due the client after prior liens. It applies to hospitals under the Hospital Lien Act. A pharmacy is not a hospital.
- Civil Code section 3040 limits what a health plan may recover by way of reimbursement, roughly a third where an attorney is retained. It applies to plans, not to providers extending credit.
Attorneys quote both as negotiating anchors regardless, and that is fair enough — they describe what the legislature thought was reasonable for a plaintiff to give up. We are not going to pretend they are binding on us, and we are not going to pretend they are irrelevant to the conversation either.
What actually governs is Howell and the line of cases after it: past medical damages are limited to the lesser of the amount paid or incurred and the reasonable value of the services. That is the reason our pricing is one uniform schedule rather than a lien-specific one, and it is the reason we would rather run a defensible balance than a large one.
General information, not legal advice. No attorney has reviewed this page.
Send the request
Email medsonliens@gmail.com with the case, the balance and the picture above. If it is easier to talk it through, call (323) 653-4070 and ask for the owner.