Legislative Update: Cannabis, COVID-19, COMAR and More
Mitigating Medical Exposure
TELL ME SOMETHING GOOD! Planning for Post-Retirement Medical Expenses with 401(h) Plans
TELL ME SOMETHING GOOD! Planning for Post-Retirement Medical Expenses With 401(h) Plans
NOWOTNY KNOWS SQUAT! Part IV Using Post-Retirement Medical Plans to Raise AUM and Sell Life Insurance
NOWOTNY ON DEATH AND TAXES EPISODE 35 USING POST-RETIREMENT MEDICAL PLANS TO RAISE AUM
THE ACCIDENTAL ENTREPRENEUR PART V video
THE ACCIDENTAL ENTREPRENEUR PART V Podcast
Podcast: Health Reimbursement Arrangements
What is Subrogation and How Does it Affect Settlement Amounts?
What Money Damages Are Available In A Personal Injury Claim?
In Florida, personal injury protection (PIP) coverage limits reimbursement of medical charges to 80% of “all reasonable expenses.” What is “reasonable” is generally determined by a statutory schedule of maximum charges...more
On December 29, 2023, New York Governor Kathy Hochul vetoed, for a second time, the Grieving Families Act (the Act), a proposed amendment to New York’s wrongful death statute; that statute remains unchanged....more
The pen is mightier than the sword — especially a pen held by a sitting governor. Currently sitting on the desk of New York’s governor is a piece of proposed legislation known as the “Grieving Families Act” which, if signed...more
A recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (Patterson v. United HealthCare Ins. Co., No. 22-3167, 2023 WL 4882436 (6th Cir. Aug. 1, 2023)) illustrates the importance of clearly describing key plan...more
What amount of past medical expenses can a plaintiff present to the jury when he or she is a Medicare recipient? The short answer: only the amount of past medical expenses the plaintiff is obligated to pay, not the gross...more
The Florida Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday, March 8, 2023, in the case of Allstate Insurance Co. et al. v. Revival Chiropractic LLC, case number SC22-735, regarding payment of medical expenses that could affect...more
This past week, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that private causes of action brought under the Medicare Secondary Payer Act (MSP Act) are not preempted by contractual and state procedural...more
Is an insured legally entitled to recover the incurred amount of medical expenses or a reasonable amount of medical expenses? This issue often arises in first-party bad faith cases arising from uninsured motorist (“UM”) and...more
Governor Reynolds signed a bill this week altering and clarifying the amount of damages a claimant may recover for medical expenses in a personal injury lawsuit. This new law remedies confusion that had arisen over time...more
In negligence actions, Virginia has long adhered to the “collateral source rule” which holds that payments received by an injured plaintiff from a source other than the tortfeasor/defendant are not deducted from the damages...more
South Carolina has long recognized the common law collateral source rule. The rule provides that any compensation received by an injured party from a source independent of the tortfeasor cannot be applied to reduce damages...more
So-called “Macomb Solution” to get rid of mandatory car insurance in Michigan and allowing drivers to elect to be uninsured is epically bad idea; financial ruin if a car crash occurs - Macomb County Rep. Pete Lucido’s...more
A traumatic brain injury ("TBI") results from a specific traumatic event causing some type of damage to the brain. Such trauma could be the head being struck by an object or being jolted by a collision, or even having an...more
Under Texas law, recovery of past medical expenses is limited to the amount actually paid or incurred. Section 41.0105 was enacted in 2003 by the Texas Legislature as a tort reform initiative to limit past medical damages to...more
Florida has been plagued with insurance fraud for decades. All insurance coverages are susceptible to fraud, but scams are especially prevalent in the context of automobile accidents. Staged crashes, patient brokering,...more
In January, we reported that California’s Supreme Court had embraced a problematic approach to the state’s Unfair Insurance Practices Act—one that allows the Commissioner of Insurance to create new statutory torts by...more
2017 could be big for litigation over “Big Data” applications in insurance. This past year saw the filing of several “price optimization” class actions, and claims against a fraud detection tool, similar to the ones used by...more
The California Court of Appeal recently published another opinion about the Nickerson v. Stonebridge Life Insurance case. The court held to its maximum 10:1 punitive-to-compensatory-damages ratio and analyzed whether this...more
Under no-fault laws, automobile policies typically must cover the cost of certain medical services provided to policyholders who have been injured in covered accidents. New York’s insurance laws also permit those costs to be...more
In a majority of jurisdictions, the “notice-prejudice rule” provides that an insurer may not deny a claim on grounds of late notice without demonstrating prejudice. The rule is statutory in some states and judicially crafted...more
The South Dakota Supreme Court in Bertelsen v. Allstate Insurance Co., 833 N.W.2d 545, No. 26442 (June 12, 2013) (1) held that an insurer cannot avoid bad faith liability by claiming it did not know about controlling claims...more
Marina Karvelas was quoted in a July 18, 2013, article published by Claims Journal, Could Medpay Be The Latest Target In California Bad Faith Claims, about a recent appeals court decision in California dealing with bad faith...more
In today’s challenging health care environment, Charitable Patient Assistance Programs (Charitable PAPs) have emerged to meet the needs of the nearly 30 million Americans that are underinsured and have difficulty paying...more
In State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Huff, 2013 DJDAR 7379 (2013), the California Court of Appeal for the Fourth Appellate District decided a novel fee case in the medical context, referencing standards used to...more
In Howell v. Hamilton Meats & Provisions, Inc. the California Supreme Court ruled that a plaintiff’s recovery of medical damages is limited to the amount paid by the plaintiff’s health insurer and accepted by the health care...more