Accident can happen anytime. However, head-on collisions are often among the worst. Today, a head-on collision occurred on Sierra Highway in Santa Clarita. The impact has sent two people to Antelope Valley Hospital. From early reports, a white Honda collided with another white sedan of some sort at approximately 1:19 p.m. near Sierra Highway, just north of the Halfway House Cafe.

Officer Christian Cracraft of the California Highway Patrol said major life threatening injuries were sustained in the crash. As of this writing, it wasn’t immediately known if the drivers were the only occupants of the vehicles. Cracraft believed but could not be certain that it was the drivers of each vehicle who were taken to the hospital.

Head-on collisions can occur when one driver tries to go around traffic, mistakenly enters oncoming traffic, loses control of a vehicle, is busy texting, otherwise not paying attention, or drinking and driving among other reasons. I extend my thoughts to the families of all involved. We shall have to wait and see what this investigation reveals.

Hi. My name is Robert Mansour, and I’m a personal injury lawyer. Sometimes people say, “Rob what should I do when I go to the doctor’s office? 

First of all, make sure you mention all of your injuries to the doctor. This is not the time to hold back. Also make sure you go to the doctor soon after your accident. Don’t wait too long or else the insurance company for the other party is going to doubt that you were injured. Also, when you first go to the doctor, they’re going to give you an “intake form” that you have to fill out. You want to make sure that you fill that out completely. Put all of your complaints – everything that happened from the car accident you should write it down. Here is the reason: The absence of information leads some insurance adjusters to think that something never happened. So if you don’t complain about your neck pain, if you don’t complain about your back pain, the insurance adjuster might say, “Well, he must have not had any neck pain. He must have not had any back pain.” 

So be very, very thorough when you first go to the doctor. Whether you go to your own doctor or an attorney-referred doctor is something you should discuss with your personal injury lawyer. If you have any questions about this please feel free to contact my office. Thank you very much. 

You can’t just settle your personal injury case without making sure all the doctors and other service providers have been paid. Any doctor or medical service provider is not usually providing their service out of the goodness of their heart. They expect to get paid. In some cases, the health care professional is working on a lien, expecting to get paid out of any settlement you might receive. In other cases, the health care professional may have been paid by your health insurance company but they have a balance that must be paid because they were not a “preferred” provider. This is known as “balance billing.” 

Other times, the doctor has already been paid by your health insurance, but what most folks don’t realize is their health insurance provider expects to be reimbursed from any settlement proceeds. They could technically come after you for reimbursement in many cases. That is an unpleasant surprise if you’ve already spent the proceeds or settled for less than you should have. Also, if your own insurance company paid any of your medical bills, they might also be expecting reimbursement. If you have Medi-Cal or MediCare, you can bet they want their money back from your settlement! You should always make sure all involved parties have been addressed.