State Farm v. Spine Care Delaware
Annotate this CaseA superior court determined State Farm Mutual Auto Insurance Company and State Farm Fire and Casualty Company’s (collectively, “State Farm”) payment practices with Spine Care Delaware, LLC (“SCD”) for medical fees incurred by its Personal Injury Protection (“PIP”) insureds in connection with covered multi-injection spine procedures contravened 21 Del. C. 2118(a)(2). When State Farm received SCD’s charges for a multi-injection procedure performed on one of its PIP insureds, it unilaterally applied a Multiple Payment Reduction (“MPR”) to the charges for injections after the first injection in a manner consistent with Medicare guidelines, paying SCD less than what it charged. SCD sought a declaration that State Farm's application of its MPRs was inconsistent with section 2118(a)(2)’s requirement of reasonable compensation for covered medical expenses, and sought a declaration that State Farm had to pay SCD any reasonable amount charged for PIP-related medical expenses, without applying MPRs. Both parties then moved for summary judgment. The superior court held that State Farm failed to show that the MPR reductions correlated to reasonable charges for the multiple-injection treatments, and thus contravened section 2118(a)(2). On appeal, State Farm contended the superior court incorrectly placed the burden of proof on State Farm to demonstrate that its application of MPRs was reasonable, and that SCD failed to meet its burden of demonstrating that State Farm’s application of MPRs was a failure to pay reasonable and necessary expenses under the statute. Alternatively, State Farm argued that even if it had the burden of proof, it satisfied that burden. The Delaware Supreme Court agreed with State Farm's first premise, that the superior court erred in assigning State Farm the burden of proof. Judgment was reversed and the matter remanded for further proceedings.
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