High court turns down chiropractor lawsuit

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| Tuesday, November 9, 2004 12:28 AM CST | () comments

Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) � The Supreme Court said Monday it would not consider whether health insurers violate antitrust laws when they team up with doctors to adopt reimbursement policies that siphon business away from chiropractors.

At issue was whether Trigon Healthcare, Virginia's largest private health insurer, illegally conspired to develop clinical guidelines that unfairly promoted doctors over chiropractors. Two chiropractic organizations who sued in 2000 say yes, while the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled there was insufficient evidence showing that.

The Supreme Court had been asked to consider a technical legal question: whether Trigon's advisory panel, made up of mostly medical doctors who developed the policies, represented an unlawful collusion between doctors and the health insurer. Trigon says the doctors were effectively its employees; thus, by legal definition, the panel was a single entity incapable of conspiring with itself.

Trigon also argued its independent board of directors made the final decision on the panel's recommendations, and that the conspiracy argument made no sense because the company had no economic motive to prevent referrals to lower-cost chiropractors.

The chiropractic groups say the insurer's policies have unfairly cost its industry $100.9 million in lost fees in Virginia from 1996 to 2001. Left unchecked, patients and employers will have to pay higher out-of-pocket costs and many chiropractors may be forced out of business, they say.

The case is American Chiropractic Association v. Trigon Healthcare, 04-312.

OTHER CASES

In developments Monday at the Supreme Court, the justices:

n Declined to hear an appeal from Washington state to stop minority felons from seeking the right to vote. The felons challenge as racially discriminatory a law stripping them of their right to vote. Every state but Maine and Vermont bar imprisoned felons from voting.

n Wrangled with a case that seeks to clarify when police can be sued for arresting suspects on charges that later fall apart. The Washington state case being argued involves a man who sued over his arrest during a traffic stop.

n Passed up a chance to consider whether the U.S. Coast Guard can be sued for providing questionable emergency care to an injured Florida diver who later became paralyzed.

n Declined to review four Massachusetts discrimination cases involving judgments of thousands of dollars that employers say should have been decided by juries, not judges.

� The Associated Press