Attorneys Puzzled Over Directive to Protect Medicare in Settlements

A memorandum by the chief New Jersey workers' compensation judge about Medicare conditional payments has lawyers and other judges scratching their heads over what may have prompted it. Chief Judge Russell Wojtenko may have issued the April 18 memo because he wants to speed up the settlement process and is giving fair warning to attorneys that they need to have all payments to Medicare taken care of ahead of time, said well-known New Jersey attorney John Gelman, who blogged about the memo this week. But as to what precipitated the rule, even some judges were unsure...