A longstanding battle between a Florida surgery center and State Farm Insurance Co. over a controversial minimally invasive procedure used to treat car accident victims' back pain has flared up again, as both sides filed lawsuits within hours of each other yesterday.

In a federal lawsuit, State Farm alleges that physicians and managers at Palm Beach Lakes Surgery Center worked with a subsidiary of medical device manufacturer ArthroCare and local personal injury attorneys to inflate the cost of a diagnostic test and percutaneous discectomy. Doctors say the procedure is a legitimate treatment for back pain, but the insurer contends that it's unnecessary, reports the Palm Beach Post

Also at issue in the suit is the doctors' use of a medical device called the SpineWand to perform the back procedure. Surgery center founder Jonathan Cutler, DPM, one of the doctors named in the suit, also founded DiscoCare, the original distributor of the SpineWand, which he later sold to ArthroCare. The manufacturer has already paid State Farm $2.5 million, plus nearly $4.5 million in settlements to other insurers, to settle disputes over DiscoCare's billing practices.

The new suit accuses Gary Carroll and Mark Izydore, who manage the Palm Beach surgery center, of working with the doctors and local personal injury lawyers "to knowingly profit from the medically unnecessary procedures."

Hours after State Farm filed its suit, the surgery center's attorneys fired back with a lawsuit of their own. The defamation suit, filed in Palm Beach Circuit Court, defends the use of percutaneous discectomy for back pain and accuses State Farm of attacking the doctors and center managers in order to avoid paying claims and protect its profit margins.

This is not the first time the surgery center and State Farm have battled over this issue. Earlier legal battles ended with the 2 sides agreeing in 2008 not to sue one another, an agreement that was obviously broken this week. The Palm Beach Post chronicles the longstanding dispute here.

Irene Tsikitas

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