EUO – No need to highlight the information

EUO Scheduling Letters: No Highlighting Required

Examination Under Oath (EUO) proceedings are a critical component of New York No-Fault Insurance Law, allowing insurance companies to question parties under oath about their claims. These examinations must be properly scheduled according to specific regulatory requirements, but questions often arise about how detailed and conspicuous the scheduling notices must be.

The formatting and presentation of EUO scheduling letters has been a point of contention in no-fault litigation. Insurance companies and medical providers have disputed whether scheduling letters must use bold text, underlining, or other visual emphasis to highlight key information like dates, times, and consequences of non-appearance. This formatting question may seem minor, but it can significantly impact whether an EUO no-show results in waived discovery rights or other penalties.

The Appellate Term’s decision in Five Boro Psychological Services provides important clarity for practitioners handling these cases, establishing that conspicuous highlighting is not a regulatory requirement. This ruling affects how both insurers draft their scheduling correspondence and how providers can challenge EUO notices on procedural grounds.

Case Background

Five Boro Psychological Services, P.C. brought suit against State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company seeking payment for no-fault benefits. State Farm asserted that the plaintiff’s assignor failed to appear for a scheduled Examination Under Oath. The Civil Court initially found in favor of the provider, determining among other things that the EUO scheduling letters failed to conspicuously highlight important information as allegedly required by regulation.

State Farm appealed this determination, arguing that no regulation requires conspicuous highlighting of information in EUO scheduling letters. The Appellate Term needed to determine whether Insurance Department Regulations impose formatting requirements beyond basic content specifications for EUO notices.

Jason Tenenbaum’s Analysis

Five Boro Psychological Servs., P.C. v State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 2011 NY Slip Op 51846(U)(App. Term 2d Dept. 2011)

“Furthermore, contrary to the Civil Court’s determination, there is no requirement that EUO scheduling letters conspicuously highlight the information contained therein (see Insurance Department Regulations § 65-3.5 , )“

Legal Significance

The Five Boro Psychological Services decision eliminates a potential basis for challenging EUO scheduling letters. Healthcare providers can no longer argue that EUO notices are defective simply because important information wasn’t bolded, underlined, or otherwise visually emphasized. This ruling focuses courts on substantive compliance with regulatory requirements rather than formatting minutiae.

The decision reflects a sensible approach to regulatory interpretation. Insurance Department Regulations § 65-3.5 specifies what information EUO scheduling letters must contain, but nowhere mandates particular formatting or visual presentation. Courts should not impose requirements that regulations do not actually establish. Requiring conspicuous highlighting would add a layer of compliance burden not found in the regulatory text.

This ruling also serves efficiency objectives. If courts required conspicuous highlighting, litigation would proliferate over what constitutes “conspicuous”—must text be bolded? How large must font be? What about italics versus underlining? These formatting disputes would waste judicial resources without enhancing the actual notice function that EUO letters serve.

Practical Implications

For insurance carriers, Five Boro Psychological Services provides flexibility in drafting EUO scheduling letters. Carriers need not invest time and resources creating specially formatted correspondence with bold text, underlining, or other visual emphasis. Plain text letters containing the required regulatory information suffice. This simplifies template creation and reduces the risk of technical defects that providers might exploit.

However, carriers should not interpret this decision as license to bury important information in dense text blocks. While highlighting is not required, clear organization and readable presentation serve carriers’ interests. Well-formatted letters reduce the risk that claimants will genuinely overlook important details like examination dates and consequences of non-appearance.

For healthcare providers and plaintiffs’ attorneys, this decision narrows available challenges to EUO no-show defenses. Providers cannot defeat EUO-based claim denials by arguing that scheduling letters lacked visual emphasis. Instead, providers must identify substantive deficiencies—such as missing required information, unreasonable scheduling, or failure to comply with other regulatory mandates.

The decision counsels providers about prioritizing compliance over challenging EUO notices. Rather than searching for technical defects in scheduling letters, providers should ensure their assignors attend scheduled examinations. Once claimants fail to appear, procedural challenges to notice adequacy rarely succeed, as courts focus on whether required information was provided rather than how it was formatted.

Key Takeaway

Insurance companies are not required to use bold text, underlining, or other visual emphasis in EUO scheduling letters. This decision eliminates a potential procedural defense that medical providers might raise when challenging EUO no-show determinations. The ruling clarifies that plain text scheduling letters satisfy regulatory requirements under Insurance Department Regulations § 65-3.5.

Legal Update (February 2026): The regulatory framework governing EUO scheduling procedures referenced in this 2011 post may have been amended since publication, particularly Insurance Department Regulations § 65-3.5 and § 65, which have been subject to periodic updates. Practitioners should verify current regulatory requirements for EUO notice formatting and procedural compliance, as subsequent regulatory amendments or judicial interpretations may have modified the standards discussed.