St. Vincent Med. Care, P.C. v Country-Wide Ins. Co. 2009 NY Slip Op 29508 (App. Term 2d Dept. 2009)
This case is more notable for the fact that it was decided prior to, yet published after “Infinity v. Eveready”, as well as Justice Golia’s scathing dissent regarding many of the same concerns that the Court of Appeals discussed 6 years ago in “Medical Society v. Serio.”
The issue that I am writing about is something that I am sure nobody noticed. It involved the defendant’s failure to prima facie prove its fee schedule defense. The court said the following:
“In opposition, defendant argued that it timely denied plaintiff’s claim seeking to recover the sum of $228.55 for services rendered on February 22, 2006 on the ground that the fee sought was in excess of the amount permitted by the workers’ compensation fee schedule because the services for which payment was sought were part of another service and, thus, were not separately reimbursable. Defendant established that it timely denied this claim”
It appears that the insurance carrier denied either muscle testing or range of motion testing based upon the worker’s compensation ground rule that prohibits compensation for certain services that are performed when an initial or follow-up evaluation is performed and paid. While many do not know this fact, this was the fee schedule issue that was presented in Rogy Medical, P.C. v. Mercury Ins. Co., 2009 NY Slip Op 50732(U)(App. Term 2d Dept. 2009), and it did not succeed.
