$5,000 for an injection?
$100,000 for a surgery center “facility” fee?
$250,000 for a one-level fusion?
Where does it end?
In too many cases, claimants seek to “blackboard” inflated medical bills far outside the “reasonable and customary” standard to justify ever higher verdicts. But what is the “reasonable and customary” value of claimant’s medical treatment? Whatever the doctor or hospital says? The Medicare reimbursement rate? The private insurer reimbursement rate? Here, expert testimony is helpful to bring order to the chaos that is medical billing explaining to jurors why a $100,000 surgery center “facility” fee is outrageous and the “reasonable and customary” value for such service is closer to $10,000.
Claimants are pushing back against expert-driven rebuttal testimony, filing Daubert motions to exclude such testimony usually on “methodology” or “collateral source” grounds. But as shown in the links below, the defense bar is having success in defeating such Daubert motions and getting favorable expert testimony before juries that can dramatically reduce the medical bills and, by extension, verdicts. If you want to know more about the experts we use to knock down inflated medical bills and other trial strategies to minimize jury verdicts, please reach out to us.
J. Robb Cruser
404 881 2626
rcruser@cmlawfirm.com