Legal term
Medical Lien
Updated Jul 20, 20261 sources
In a sentence
A legal claim against your settlement by whoever paid for your injury-related care — Medicare, Medicaid, private insurers, or hospitals. Liens are paid out of your recovery before you are.
Federal law makes Medicare's recovery rights mandatory; Medicaid and private plans assert similar rights. Lien resolution — auditing, negotiating, and paying these claims — is a standard, often months-long step between settlement and distribution.
Liens are one of the four layers between gross settlement and your net: attorney fee, common-benefit holdback (in MDLs), case expenses, then liens. Our settlement calculator's fee-stack view shows how the layers interact.
