HOUSTON (Legal Newsline) – Insurers are suing Texas health care providers they allege conspired to inflate the cost of medical care.
The insurers, including Farmers Texas Mutual Insurance Company, filed suit in Houston federal court on June 24 against 1st Choice Accident & Injury, as well as Houston Pain Relief & Wellness Clinic, Smart Choice Chiropractic, Texas Regional Clinic, Medical Center Chiropractic, Celebrity Spine & Joint, ProHealth Medical Group Management, Complete Pain Solutions, Origin Spine Institute, Origin MRI and Diagnostics and Millennium Pain & Surgical Institute.
Also named as defendants are several doctors and chiropractors.
“The fraudulent billing amounts to more than $14 million in damages suffered by Farmers,” the suit says. “The pattern of treatment does not reflect proper treatment of patients.
“Rather, the pattern evinces Defendants’ greater forethought to profiting from unnecessary medical procedures, and even billing for procedures that were never performed.”
1st Choice Accident & Injury is a chiropractic firm that has 13 locations in the Houston area and is run by brothers Phuc Vinh “Charlie” Huynh and Phuc Kien “Andy” Huynh, the suit says. The alleged scheme involves treatment for drivers involved in car accidents.
That treatment includes fraudulent exam reports, fraudulent billing and medical reports and the supply of those reports to personal injury lawyers, the suit says.
“The Defendants’ scheme is designed to enrich Defendants by inducing Farmers to rely on their bills and supporting documentation that on their face purport to substantiate the need for medical treatment and (2) settle BI and UM Claims within policy limits, and often for all or most of the limits, to protect Farmers and their insureds from potential judgments exceeding policy limits and/or avoid potential liability for bad-faith claims,” the suit says.