Mailing and the first time “objective” has landed in a medical rational case

Easy Care Acupuncture, P.C. v 21 Century Advantage Ins. Co., 2014 NY Slip Op 51766(U)(App. Term 1st Dept. 2014)

(1) The joy of mailing vendors

“In this regard, the affidavit submitted by an employee of Farmers Insurance Exchange, defendant’s claims administrator, failed to adequately describe its office mailing procedures (see Matter of Lumbermens Mut. Cas. Co. [Collins], 135 AD2d 373, 375 [1987]), merely stating that items placed in its “mail bin” are picked up by a nonparty entity – Pitney Bowes Services, Inc. (“Pitney Bowes”) – which brings the items on a daily basis to the post office. The affiant professed no personal knowledge of, nor did she attempt to describe, the procedures utilized by Pitney Bowes to assure timely and proper delivery”

(2) On medical necessity

“Moreover, even beyond defendant’s shortcomings in proof concerning the mailing issue, the report of defendant’s peer review acupuncturist failed to set forth sufficient facts or medical rationale for his stated conclusion that further acupuncture treatment of plaintiff’s assignor was not medically necessary. That the assignor may have subjectively reported during the course of the peer review examination that she “feels worse” after three months of acupuncture treatment did not, by itself and without any objective medical explanation by the peer reviewer, eliminate all triable issues regarding the medical necessity of continued acupuncture treatment.”

This one is interesting because the Court has finally held that an objective medical explanation is necessary to support a medical necessity defense or, contrariwise, prove that there is a medical rationale for further treatment in opposition to an insurance carrier’s examination.