August 21, 2002
Multi-Million Dollar Civil Suit
Names Chiropractic Clinics &Chiropractors
By Howard Hobbs PhD, Editor & Publisher

 FRESNO -- The nationally known Insurance Letter, today reported a huge civil suit has been filed by the Mutual Service Insurance Companies (MSI) of Maine.
The Hennepin County District Court in Maine has the case in its jurisdiction and has not set a date for the trial. The law suit named the owners of five separate chiropractic health care clinics and four chiropractic health care specialists as defendants.
     The suit alleges that the defendants organized a scheme to steer accident victims to their clinics in order to defraud auto insurance companies by billing for unnecessary treatments.
    The plaintiffs are seeking damages in excess of $3 million. Auto IInsurance policies for injured patients normally pay reasonable & necessary medical care and then bill the at-fault driver's insurance carrier, for those medical care costs. In this case MSI was billed by the insured's carrier, and refused payment on general grounds of chriopractor fraud.
     Named in the suit are five area chiropractic clinics, including Saint Paul Spinal Health Center, Inc., Midwest Family Chiropractic Group, P.A., South Metro Spinal Rehabilitation, Inc., Eastside Chiropractic and Rehabilitation, Inc., Northeast Spinal Rehabilitation, Inc.
     Also named in the suit are the clinics' alleged "owners," Howard Pindyck and chiropractor Phillip Bruno. The remaining defendants include chiropractors Michael Czichray, Leonard Evangelist, Mark Soli and Russell Anderson.
   

    [Editor's Note: MSI Insurance Companies includes the Mutual Service Casualty Insurance Company, the Mutual Service Life Insurance Company, the Modern Service Insurance Company, something called MSI Preferred Insurance Company Pension Solutions, Inc.]