CUTTING EDGE INDUSTRY THOUGHT LEADERSHIP INSIGHTS

Synergy’s blog brings you the industry’s foremost thought leadership InSights on matters of healthcare lien resolution and Medicare Secondary Payer Compliance. Visit often to discover helpful InSights on important lien resolution compliance issues.

How Internal Rate of Return Impacts Your Client’s Settlement

How Internal Rate of Return Impacts Your Client’s Settlement

Synergy creates holistic settlement plans that meet our client’s needs while presenting the least possible amount of risk. We work tireless for our clients, helping attorneys and their seriously injured clients to plan for their post settlement future by attending mediations and helping navigate through the complexities that arise at settlement. The majority of financial […]

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The Benefits of Attorney Fee Deferral Programs

The Benefits of Attorney Fee Deferral Programs

Attorney Fee Deferral Programs  By Daniel J. Alvarez, J.D. and Anthony F. Prieto, Jr., CFP® Due to the contingent nature of compensation as a plaintiff lawyer, unique retirement planning options exist especially for you. Below we compare and contrast traditional small business retirement plans with some of the unique tax deferred planning options available when […]

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Court’s Authority Over a Minor’s Settlement is Not Preempted by ERISA

Court’s Authority Over a Minor’s Settlement is Not Preempted by ERISA

By: Synergy’s Director of Lien Resolution The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) is a federal law that sets minimum standards for most voluntarily established pension and health plans in private industry to provide protection for individuals in these plans. As every plaintiff’s attorney knows, the rights of self-funded ERISA qualified plans are […]

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McCutchen Round 2 – Why 29 U.S.C. 1024(b)(4) Matters

McCutchen Round 2 – Why 29 U.S.C. 1024(b)(4) Matters

On March 17, 2014 the trial court in the infamous U.S. Airways v McCutchen entered an order allowing Mr. McCutchen to amend his answer to include affirmative defenses and a counter-claim.  The court allowed this unusually late amendment to pleadings as result of U.S. Airways’s failure to produce the Master Plan Document (MPD) until just […]

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FL Supreme Court Overturns Med Mal Caps

FL Supreme Court Overturns Med Mal Caps

In a well reasoned opinion, the Florida Supreme Court has overtuned the unfair medical malpractice caps.  These caps devalued human life as children and seniors who were not breadwinners, could be the victim of malpractice with no real ability for family members to recover damages.  We applaud the Florida Supreme Court’s opinion in the McCall […]

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Medicaid Liens – Congressional Reversal of Ahlborn & Wos

Medicaid Liens – Congressional Reversal of Ahlborn & Wos

Unfortunately, as part of the budget signed by President Obama on the 26th of December (Merry Xmas), a legislative fix for Ahlborn was made law.  Now, Medicaid liens are like Medicare liens in the sense that they are super liens.  Medicaid will be able to assert its lien against the entirety of the settlement instead […]

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Settlement Planning – What is IRR and Does It Matter?

Settlement Planning – What is IRR and Does It Matter?

At Synergy, we spend a lot of time in mediations helping attorneys and their seriously injured clients to plan for their post settlement future.  We try to create holistic settlement plans that meet our client’s needs while taking the least possible amount of risk.  The majority of financial products in the settlement industry are fixed income or fixed interest products.

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The Affordable Care Act:  Injury Victims Beware

The Affordable Care Act: Injury Victims Beware

As has been well publicized, it was revealed last week on healthcare.gov that fewer than 27,000 people signed up for private health insurance last month in the 36 states relying on a problem-filled federal website.  States running their own enrollment systems signed up more than 79,000, for a total enrollment of just over 100,000. 

Even more concerning then the technological challenges with the system, is whether consumers have the necessary knowledge of health insurance to be making these decisions by January 1, 2014.  According to poll results released in August 2013 by the American Institute of CPAs, more than half of Americans are not equipped with the rudimentary knowledge of health insurance concepts and definitions to understand the basics of health insurance plans.  Read more ….

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