Posts Tagged ‘medical records’

Staged accidents put Florida at top of scammer list

Friday, June 25th, 2010

It comes to no surprise to us that Florida leads the nation in phony accident claims. The National Insurance Crime Bureau says that these types of rip-offs increased 46 percent between 2007 and 2009.

Florida was the leader with 3,006 staged accidents over the two-year period. Tampa was the worst city for fraud, followed by Miami and Orlando.

The Miami CBS affiliate reports that the problem is huge in South Florida. The video report shows how unsuspecting drivers can become victims of fraud.

And the South Florida Sun-Sentinel quoted the NICB report as saying, “Staged accidents are dangerous criminal events that target innocent drivers with increasingly bold schemes aimed at defrauding insurance companies out of millions of dollars. Unless someone becomes suspicious, many of these staged accidents go undetected.”

We have long been suspicious of these type of accidents, and of the claims filed by medical service providers. As we previously reported, people will recruit insured drivers to fake accidents so that bogus Personal Injury Protection (PIP) claims can be filed. In these cases, the people involved never suffer any injury and never see a doctor or receive medical treatment.

The rise in staged accidents means insurance premiums are also going up. Insurance companies like ours must pass along the costs to safe, honest drivers. Part of the solution is stronger law enforcement. This year, the Florida Department of Financial Services worked with NICB and local police to arrest 27 people who were charged in faking accidents and medical claims.

The other step that’s needed: legal reform. The Florida legislature must make it harder for drivers and medical clinics to set up phony schemes. And the state must eliminate the financial incentives for plaintiff attorneys to sue when claims are not paid. Right now, the clinics and attorneys have all to gain and little to lose when an insurance company challenges their claims. Until there are strong deterrents to fraud, Florida drivers will continue to pay for drivers, clinics and lawyers who cheat.

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CEO Richard Parrillo, Sr., speaks out on PIP fraud in national magazine

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

The continuing exposes of personal injury protection (PIP) fraud by United Auto Courts Report are getting national attention. United Automobile Insurance Company (UAIC) CEO Richard Parrillo, Sr., was interviewed in March 2010 by Claims, a national magazine for the insurance industry.

UAIC’s efforts to fight PIP abuses by drivers, health clinics and attorneys geared up with the launch of this blog in December. Claims interviewed Parrillo about PIP fraud and what needs to be done to stop it. Here are excerpts from Parrillo’s interview. In it, he says:

  • PIP attorneys and clinics have been exploiting the system for as long as PIP has been in place.
  • In recent years, the [accident] runners have been replaced with more blatant solicitation efforts. Now, hotlines and advertisements such as 800-NEED HELP or 800-411-PAIN draw the accident victim in with promises of automatic payments of “$10,000 in benefits and lost wages.
  • Plaintiff PIP attorneys have told us directly that they share the fees with the [health] clinics.
  • The county courts reward plaintiffs’ attorneys for churning fees and performing unnecessary work to prosecute their cases. This phenomenon of inexplicable attorney-fee awards has fueled the fraud and abuse that permeates the PIP system.
  • PIP fraud and abuse is so widespread in Florida, it’s hard to say that the problem can ever be solved. … Of course, attorney-fee reform will have to occur for there ever to be hope of solving this problem.

For more of the interview, read the entire article on the Claims magazine Web site.

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Attorneys bought stolen medical records for insurance claims, newspaper reports

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Have they no shame? A Coral Gables couple has been accused – again – of arranging the theft of hospital patient records and selling them to personal injury attorneys and health care clinics.

There seems to be a complete lack of ethics here. The couple apparently sold confidential records to health care clinics and attorneys that paid kickbacks based on how much they won from insurers. If those allegations are true, people should go to prison and attorneys should be permanently disbarred.

Ruben E. Rodriguez, 61, and wife Maria Victoria Suarez, 52, were indicted in federal court on charges of selling stolen computerized patients’ records to several attorneys, according to a March 8, 2010, article in the Miami Herald. The newspaper reported that personal injury attorneys paid the couple “hundreds of thousands of dollars” for the referrals after settling injury claims.

Personal injury protection (PIP) insurance covers 80 percent of an injured person’s medical bills and 60 percent of lost wages up to $10,000. The Florida Division of Insurance Fraud estimates more than 80 percent of all PIP insurance claims involve some aspect of fraud in connection with unrelated, unnecessary and excessive treatment.

This type of illegal patient solicitation has permeated Florida’s PIP system for years.  From purchasing police reports to patient hospital records, personal injury attorneys and health care clinics will stop at nothing to lure unsuspecting patients in their doors.

Among the lawyers suspected of working with the couple is G. Walter Araujo of Hialeah. He has not been formally charged, but the Herald reports that the Florida Bar says it is investigating him for potential ethics violations. Those came about in a previous federal case against Rodriguez and Suarez in which they were accused of stealing hospital patient records. Rodriguez admitted to a federal court that he sold the records of hundreds of patients treated for, among other things, car-crash injuries.

In the latest indictments, federal prosecutors told the Herald that the couple worked with an ambulance company employee to steal hospital records. Those were sold to health care clinics and lawyers that filed claims for the patients. The FBI began investigating and prosecutors handed down indictments.

The people accused – and those yet to be charged — have no sense of decency. They have no respect for people’s privacy, for the law, or for the court system. How much did the attorneys involved rip off honest drivers and insurance companies? How many trials were frauds? We may never know.

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