Personal Injury Question Re: Medi-cal Lien

Hi,

I am trying to gather as much information before I even reach out to lawyers for my family member's catastrophic personal injury.

He went through surgery/PT & OT/, a lot of those, under Medi-Cal insurance (might be called Medi-Caid in other states).

While I was doing research, I found out that there is thing called Medi-Cal lien, which has to be paid FIRST when the settlement is reached.

This gave me some fears and made me think of some questions...

Would be greatly appreciated if I could get the answers or any type of advice.

In case of settlement amount being equal or lower than the Medi-Cal lien,

1. I would owe money to my lawyer (because they are paid % of GROSS settlement. in this case, can I just not accept the settlement and walk away, so I don't owe anything at least? (I know there would be a lien remaining anyways.) Are lawyers okay with this usually? What is the common practice and what is the good advice for this case?

2. How does the negotiation work? Does the lawyer negotiate with the defendant's insurance company (mentioning about the Medi-Cal lien amount), or does he negotiate with Medi-Cal (mentioning about the likely settlement amount), or both ways?

3. I have never seen Medi-Cal sending collection or reporting to credit agency to get their money back. is this because I haven't seen a case where the third party caused the harm? Does this happen everytime when the third party is the one who caused the damage?

4. How do I find/tell a "good" lawyer? I am located in California. This is a personal injury in martial art gym.

Or just.. what would be the best way for me to approach this? I know I am expecting that we will WIN the case, but I am also aware that this will be an another hurdle.. to prove that it was the third party's fault.

Again, thank you for reading this. And please feel free to give me any advice or tell me I am wrong on any thought I am doing.. I really want to do this right from the beginning.

Thank you.