Reasons Why Your Attorney Shouldn’t Write a Refund Letter

by  David M. Glaser, Esq.
Jan 16th, 2025

If your lawyer ever writes you a letter/email telling you to refund money, I recommend you get a new lawyer. 

Now, it is very easy to misconstrue what I just said.  I am not suggesting in any shape, way, or form that a lawyer should not recommend that you refund money when the lawyer believes a refund is appropriate.  If you have billed for a service you did not provide, billed for a service that was not medically necessary, or billed for a service where you were not satisfying Medicare’s conditions of payment, I will recommend that a client refund. 

The key phrase in my topic sentence was “write a letter/email.”  A lawyer orally giving advice to refund is entirely appropriate.  Memorializing it in writing is very unhelpful. 

While I understand that many people would say a lawyer’s primary responsibility is helping individuals understand the law, I think you could make a credible argument that, in fact, the most important thing a lawyer can do is make their client look good.  Helping understand the law is merely one of the means to the all-important end.   

Think back to your childhood for a moment.  You are playing with someone, a friend or a sibling, who does something to hurt you.  An adult intervenes in the situation and quickly chastises your playmate saying, “apologize right now.”  How much weight do you give to that apology?  If you are like I am, the answer is very little.  You are going to question the sincerity of the purported remorse. 

A forced apology does not carry much weight.

... Continue reading the article at RACmonitor →

This article originally published on January 15, 2025 by RACmonitor.

About David M. Glaser, Esq.

David M. Glaser is a shareholder in Fredrikson & Byron's Health Law Group. David assists clinics, hospitals, and other health care entities negotiate the maze of healthcare regulations, providing advice about risk management, reimbursement, and business planning issues. He has considerable experience in healthcare regulation and litigation, including compliance, criminal and civil fraud investigations, and reimbursement disputes. David's goal is to explain the government's enforcement position, and to analyze whether this position is supported by the law or represents government overreaching. David is a member of the RACmonitor editorial board and is a popular guest on Monitor Mondays.