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of medical bills with conditions that there would be no reference to collateral sources.18 The federal court further ruled that it would give a limiting instruction to the effect that: (1) the jury may consider such evidence only to assess the reasonableness of the medical expenses incurred and for no other purpose; (2) any evidence or inference that [the plaintiff ] received reimbursement or compensation from any collateral source must not be considered in connection with any damage award the jury deems supported by the evidence; and (3) the jury should not reduce any monetary award in favor of [the plaintiff ] due to collateral source payments made on her behalf or discounts obtained by the providers.
In sum, discovery of a medical provider’s charges, discounts and what the provider ultimately accepts as payment is discoverable and relevant for a jury to determine what amount is a reasonable charge for the care and services (per the CPT codes) for the plaintiff. It is widely known that medical providers regularly accept far less as full payment for their services than the originally billed amount. The amount charged by the healthcare provider is not instructive of what is reasonable. Reasonable value is not what is unilaterally charged by the healthcare provider, but rather, the amount ultimately accepted as payment. The best way for a defendant to challenge the reasonableness of the billed amounts at trial is to discovery and determine what the healthcare providers has accepted as payment for the same procedure codes in the past. Once you have the discoverable information, the introduction of this evidence can be admitted at trial without running afoul of the collateral source rule.
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Fla. Jury Instruction 501.2; see also The Restatement (Second) of Torts §924 (1979) A.J. v. State, 677 So.2d 935 (Fla. 4th DCA 1996).
E.W. Karate Ass’n v. Riquelme, 638 So.2d 604 (Fla. 4th DCA 1994).
Haddock v. Robinson, 289 So.2d 449 (Fla. 1st DCA 1974).
Irwin v. Blake, 589 So.2d 973, 974 (Fla. 4th DCA 1991) (Although some jurisdictions consider evidence of the amount of a medical bill to be sufficient proof of reasonableness, many, including Florida, require something more).
Columbia Hosp. v. Hasson, 33 So.3d 148 (Fla. 4th DCA 2010).
CPT codes are numbers assigned to services and procedures performed for patients by medical practitioners.
Names, birthdays and other HIPAA identifying information redacted.
The dates may vary and change depending upon the facts and dates in each case.
Colomar v. Mercy Hosp., 461 F.Supp.2d 1265 (S.D. Fla. 2006).
Id.
Id.
Courts in states other than Florida have reached similar results regarding the relevance, discoverability, and admissibility of this type of evidence. Parkview Hosp. v. Riggs, 52 N.E. 3d 804, 810 (2016) (evidence of discounted amounts that hospital accepted as