MILWAUKEE, WI – Five Wisconsin women are suing their insurance companies for what they claim is an illegal collection of co-payments for chiropractic care.Hansen Riederer Dickinson Cruger LLC says patients’ class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of state chiropractic patients of five major health insurers. According to the complaint, the health insurance providers are violating state law by requiring chiropractic patients to pay a co-payment for each visit. Cynthia Larson, one of the plaintiffs, says, “How is it insurance if I have to pay for 100% of my treatment, whether I go once or 50 times? I am actually worse off submitting my chiropractic charges to my insurer than if I paid out-of-pocket because not only do I pay the entire cost through the co-payments but then the insurance company limits the number of times I can receive treatment from my chiropractor.” Larson, along with Kimberly Dehaan, Jeannette Borden, Rebecca Bavinck, and Amy Cloute, filed suit in federal court in the Western District of Wisconsin on Friday, alleging that their insurance companies used co-payments to shift all or nearly all of the cost of chiropractic care to them. They contend that Wisconsin law prohibits these co-payments. Russ Leonard, director of the Wisconsin Chiropractic Association, says “This is a huge step towards ending the systematic and destructive discrimination against Wisconsin chiropractic patients who paid for and have a legal right to an alternative to drugs or surgery.”
Source: WEAU News