If you’ve been hurt in a car wreck, tractor-trailer wreck, or slip and fall, your medical bills can quickly pile up. But what happens when your health insurance helps pay those bills? Until recently, Georgia law protected you from being penalized for using your health insurance. That changed with the passage of Senate Bill 68 (SB 68) in 2025—and every injury victim in Georgia needs to understand the impact.
What Was the Collateral Source Rule?
For years, Georgia followed what’s known as the Collateral Source Doctrine. It simply meant that a defendant—the person or company that caused your injury—couldn’t use your health insurance, Medicare, or other benefits against you.
If your hospital billed $20,000 and your insurer negotiated that down to $6,000, the law allowed you to recover the full $20,000. That made sense: you paid for that insurance, and the at-fault party shouldn’t get a discount because you were responsible enough to have coverage.
What SB 68 Changed
SB 68, signed into law in April 2025, changed all that. Now, defendants are allowed to show the jury what was actually paid by your insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, or even through a letter of protection. The law says juries can now consider both the amount billed and the amount paid when deciding how much your case is worth.
This means that if your doctor charged $20,000 but your insurance only paid $6,000, the defendant can now argue that $6,000 is all your treatment was really “worth”—even though that wasn’t your choice.
What You Can Do
If you’ve been injured, now more than ever, it’s critical to have a legal team that understands how to properly present your medical bills and fight back against tactics that undervalue your injuries. At Parker and Lundy, we:
– Gather full billing records and expert testimony to show the true cost of your care
– Push back against unfair insurance arguments that try to minimize your recovery
– Make sure juries understand that you should not be punished for using your benefits
Final Thoughts
SB 68 makes it harder for injury victims to be made whole—but it doesn’t make it impossible. With the right team on your side, you can still get justice and the compensation you deserve. You’ve already been hurt once. Don’t let insurance companies and corporate defendants shortchange your recovery.
If you or a loved one has been injured in Georgia, call Parker and Lundy today. We’ll review your case and help you understand how these changes affect your rights—and how we can protect them.