COURT OF APPEALS RULES IN FAVOR OF ADOI
Almost ten months after hearing oral arguments, the Arizona Court of Appeals today issued its ruling in the case of Blankenbaker v. Marks and came down in favor of ADOI. Essentially, the Court ruled that ADOI has the discretion to act or not on complaints filed with the agency, and is free to ignore certain complaints if it so chooses. The full decision is posted on the ACS webpage at www.AZChiropractors.org under Breaking News 03/28/13. The next step for ACS is to get the Legislature to apply pressure on ADOI to gain enforcement of the chiropractic insurance equality law. This effort began just yesterday during the confirmation hearings for ADOI Acting Director Gerrie Marks. She was pressed hard about ADOI's non-action in response to scores of chiropractic complaints and promised the Committee to do more in the future. ACS has now followed up with a letter asking for a meeting with Ms. Marks to continue the process. The Legislature can apply tremendous pressure onto ADOI and ACS intends to ask for all the help it can get. This temporary set-back in the war for insurance equality is just that: temporary. ACS will continue to search for ways to achieve insurance equality through negotiation, legislation, litigation, public relations campaigns and any other means necessary to achieve the goal. We will be successful in the end.
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ACS FILES AMICUS BRIEF IN STATE FARM CASE TO PROTECT YOU FROM BEING FORCED TO ACCEPT $12 AS PAYMENT IN FULL FOR A DEPOSITION
State Farm has filed a petition with the Arizona Court of Appeals asking the Court to rule that all treating doctors are "fact witnesses" and not "expert witnesses" in PI cases. Fact witnesses get paid $12 plus mileage for depositions as opposed to expert witnesses who get paid hundreds of dollars per hour to testify. It has been customary for years to consider treating doctors as expert witnesses and now State Farm wants to change the rules. The State Farm petition is posted on the ACS home page at www.AZChiropractors.org.
ACS has now filed an Amicus brief with the Court of Appeals to oppose State Farm. You can read the brief by going to www.AZChiropractors.org and clicking on the link in the 03/27/13 posting. It is uncertain whether the Court will consider the State Farm Petition or the ACS brief and ACS will keep you abreast of all developments. In the meantime, if a defense attorney tries to force you to accept fact witness fees in a deposition, contact ACS to learn how to defend yourself.
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