Possible Problem With FL PIP Law Causing Problems For Rick Scott

Florida has been making strides to deal with making changes to its PIP laws so that they can reduce instances of car insurance fraud. Now the state’s governor, Rick Scott is getting complaints from representatives and other politicians about issues with the reforms that have been implemented thus far.
One problem with the new laws according to Rep. Rick Kriseman, D-St. Petersburg is that one of the paragraphs in the reforms would allow doctors and other medical professionals to deny health care treatments and services to automobile accident victims for up to six months.
The problem comes down to the new licensing laws for medical clinics. These changes will be taking effect on July 1, 2012. One source of the rampant car insurance fraud has been medical clinics that commit fraud and bill insurance companies for services that were never needed or administered. Now, victims may pay the price because of the actions of criminals who forced the state to have to create the law in the first place. Millions of dollars are lost annually due to the fact that criminals are committing car insurance fraud. There are clinics who can be excluded or exempt from the new licensing guidelines and that law begins on January 1, 2013 so there is a six month time period where legally car insurance companies could deny any claim that they want to.
 
There are still a few months until this part of the new law will take effect so the governor could decide to take action and rectify the language in the reform bill so that victims would not be shortchanged. Car insurance insiders have stated that there are no issues with the new law at all. They have stated that they would not take advantage of the verbiage and deny claims.
There is also a section which states that an emergency medical condition that a person has will allow them to get the $10,000 benefit in the PIP protection. However, there is not a clear definition of the term or how each victim will be evaluated as to whether or not they meet the criteria.
This bill is very important to the state because they cannot keep allowing car insurance fraud rings to keep popping up everywhere. There needed to be stricter licensing guidelines for clinics and other medical facilities to help to make sure that they are operating properly and are not committing fraud. The governor should evaluate the language in the bill and consider making any changes if necessary.