SB 623: New California Rules for Rideshare Injury Claims

If you get hurt in a crash involving an Uber or Lyft driver on or after January 1, 2027, the rules for how your medical bills count in the claim will be different from the rules today. A new law, SB 623, changes what can be recovered for treatment you receive "on a lien," meaning treatment paid out of your settlement instead of up front. Here is what it does, what it does not touch, and how to keep it from shrinking your claim.

Where SB 623 came from

SB 623 is a negotiated deal between Uber and the Consumer Attorneys of California. Each side had a measure headed for the November 2026 ballot: Uber's would have capped attorney contingency fees across all California crash cases, and the trial lawyers' would have increased Uber's liability for sexual misconduct. CalMatters reported that each side had raised or allocated more than $75 million for those campaigns.

Instead, both initiatives were withdrawn and the Legislature passed SB 623. Governor Newsom signed it on June 25, 2026. Unlike Uber's ballot measure, the new law is limited to ride-hailing crashes. It does not change the rules for an ordinary two-car collision.

Who it applies to

According to the Senate Judiciary Committee's analysis, the medical-expense rules apply to any civil case, claim, or arbitration against a network company, its subsidiary, or an app-based driver, arising from an automobile accident on or after January 1, 2027, in which the injured person was treated by a lien-based provider.

Three details matter:

• The date is the accident date. Medical services, liens, and assignments that arose before January 1, 2027 are expressly exempt. If you were hurt in a rideshare crash this year, SB 623's medical-bill limits do not apply to your case.
• "Network company" is a defined term. The analysis ties it to the existing Proposition 22 definitions, which cover rideshare companies and app-based delivery companies. If a gig delivery courier hit you, do not assume you are outside the law. Our post on being hit by a delivery driver explains how those claims already work.
• It only bites if you treat on a lien. If your care is billed to health insurance, the new limits do not reach it.

The 70th percentile limit on lien-based bills

This is the core of the law. For treatment from a lien-based provider, the most you can recover for past medical expenses is the 70th percentile of billed charges in the FAIR Health database, or a comparable commercial database, for the same or similar service in your geographic area at the time you received it.

A few rules sit around that limit:

• The excess is void. Any amount a lien-based provider bills above the limit is "void and unenforceable." Nobody can collect it from you, the defendant, an insurer, or your settlement. The bill's sponsors describe this as protecting patients from personal liability for inflated debts.
• You cannot recover more than the provider actually billed, even if the database figure is higher.
• Bills must be itemized at the procedure-code level, using standard codes such as CPT, HCPCS, and ICD. A provider whose bill is challenged gets 30 days to fix it.
• The jury does not see the inflated number. Neither side may show the jury billed charges above the recoverable amount.
• Exceptions are narrow and risky. A court can allow more before trial, but only on clear and convincing evidence, backed by expert testimony, that the treatment was exceptionally rare or highly specialized and no comparable provider was available. If that motion fails, you pay the other side's attorney's fees for opposing it.

The defendant can still argue that a charge was unreasonable or a treatment unnecessary. The 70th percentile is a ceiling, not a guaranteed amount.

If your lien gets sold

Many lien-based providers sell their bills at a discount to financing companies, which then try to collect the full amount from your settlement. Under SB 623, when a lien has been sold, assigned, financed, or factored, the buyer can recover no more than what it actually paid for it, and you can be held liable for no more than that.

Every such deal has to be disclosed to you, your attorney, the defendant, and the insurer within 30 days, and before any settlement is paid out. A lien sale that was never disclosed cannot be asserted against the settlement at all.

What it means for your choice of lawyer and doctor

SB 623 also changes what your attorney is allowed to do. It becomes unlawful for a lawyer working on contingency to refer you to a medical provider that the lawyer or their immediate family owns. Kickbacks, fee-splitting, and referral bonuses tied to lien-based treatment are also unlawful. A lawyer can no longer charge an extra fee for reducing your medical liens, though they may hire an outside negotiator with your consent.

Lien providers can be required to state under penalty of perjury whether your lawyer referred you, and how many patients that firm sent them in the past 24 months. Expect the defense to ask.

None of this is a reason to avoid treatment on a lien when you have no other way to get care. It is a reason to know who is treating you and why.

What SB 623 does not change

Insurers may present this law as a general discount on your claim. It is not. According to the committee analysis and the published summaries:

• Pain and suffering is untouched. The law limits past lien-based medical expenses. It does not cap non-economic damages.
• Future medical expenses are untouched.
• Care paid by health insurance, Medicare, Medi-Cal, or workers' compensation is outside it. Those programs' reimbursement rights are excluded from the definition of a "medical lien."
• The collateral source rule survives. The bill states this expressly.

The law also requires rideshare companies to run a background check before activating a driver and once a year after that, and adds disqualifying offenses, including violating a protective order. That is a safety change, not a claims change, but it may matter if a driver's history becomes part of your case.

What this means in California

The usual California framework still governs a rideshare injury claim. You generally have two years to file under CCP § 335.1. If a public entity is involved, such as a city bus or a dangerous road condition, a government claim is usually due within six months. And California's pure comparative negligence rule reduces your recovery by your share of fault rather than barring it.

SB 623 adds one more layer for crashes on or after January 1, 2027: if your medical bills run through a lien, a capped amount is what counts toward the claim. Which policy pays in the first place still turns on what the driver's app was doing, as explained in our post on Uber and Lyft accident insurance.

Practical next steps

If you are hurt in a rideshare crash after the new year, give every provider your health insurance information and ask them to bill it, because that care falls outside the new limits. If you have no coverage and need to treat on a lien, ask the provider in writing whether they sell their liens, and keep every itemized bill. Our post on who pays medical bills during a claim covers the other sources available while your case is open. If you want someone to look at how SB 623 affects your specific claim, a consultation with our firm is free and there is no fee unless there is a recovery.