Chiropractic Clinics Attempt to Defraud GEICO
On October 5, 2015, GEICO filed a lawsuit in federal court against Boston-based Big City Chiropractic & Sports Injury Clinic, according to a Law360 article. GEICO claims that Big City created a scheme to defraud the company out of, up to $1.1 million by overbilling for insurance payments and paying kickbacks to patients for cooperating with the scheme.
In the lawsuit, GEICO alleges that Dr. Brian Elias, Florida-based founder of Big City Chiropractic, and Karen Davis and Dr. Megan Bratton of Massachusetts were involved in the scheme to defraud GEICO. GEICO alleges that the trio earned substantial profits by using unskilled services and staff at their clinic while billing them as services performed by licensed staff. The lawsuit claims that that the trio overused chiropractic practices and submitted inflated demands for insurance payments based on false and deceptive bills and records.
GEICO states in the complaint, that it has already paid at least $110,000 of about $517,000 in submitted bills to Big City. The clinic has billed GEICO so far this year at an estimated annual rate of $600,000.
Big City Chiropractic & Sports Injury is the Massachusetts-based arm of an interstate network of chiropractic clinics operated by Elias.
GEICO is seeking damages including the money unfairly paid to Big City, the costs of handling the investigation, and treble damages under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and Massachusetts consumer protection law.
Click here to read Law360 article (subscription required).
