A contentious battle is heating up once again between State Farm Insurance Co. and a group of Florida doctors that the insurer alleges have been involved in a multimillion-dollar insurance fraud scheme, according to a lawsuit. State Farm fired the first salvo in federal court in West Palm Beach late Monday night, filing suit against doctors who ran now-defunct Palm Beach Practice Management. The suit claims the doctors submitted fraudulent claims based on "medically unnecessary diagnostic procedures" used on those in car accidents. The physicians fired back Tuesday, filing a complaint in Palm Beach County Circuit Court against State Farm, accusing the nation's largest insurer of libel, slander and defamation in what the suit claims was an action "intended to defame and destroy these doctors' reputations."
