State Farm v. 01837

In State Farm v. 01837 filed in 2019, State Farm claimed that a clinic was licensed with AHCA but it had a medical director who was “appointed in name only.” 

Specifically, the medical director testified at a deposition that he didn’t know if a Physician Assistant who recently departed from the company left on good terms.  This was important because it turns out that the PA testified at an earlier deposition that he quit immediately after he filed a report with the DEA when he saw several prescriptions for narcotics like Percocet and OxyContin that were already signed by one of the doctors but were intended for patients who hadn’t had their initial visit yet.

In a different deposition, an interventional pain management doctor testified that he quit the company because he refused to succumb to pressure from the non-doctor owner who wanted him to order MRIs immediately for patients even though they didn’t meet the doctor’s threshold for ordering MRIs which was neurological damage, tingling, numbness, burning pain, sharp pains running down the leg.

In another deposition, a different PA testified that he quit because he was instructed by the non-doctor owner to perform a steroid injection into a diabetic patient with a high blood sugar level.  When the PA explained to the clinic’s non-doctor owner that he could kill the diabetic patient by injecting the steroid medication, the non-doctor owner told the PA to only inject the lidocaine which has no medicinal value but would “preserve the relationship” with the person who referred the patient- an injury attorney.

State Farm claimed that if the medical director did his job as required by Florida Statute 400.9935 then he would have known about these major issues and taken immediate corrective action to stop it from happening.