August 2004

Trigon petition due at end of August

August 31 is the deadline for the American Chiropractic Association to file its petition for an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court in the case against Trigon/Blue Cross Blue Shield.

George McAndrews, ACA’s lead attorney, believes the ACA has a strong argument to make in response to three questions that would qualify the case to be considered:

• Is there a conflict between two appeals courts regarding an issue?

• Is there a conflict between an appeals court decision and a previous action by the Supreme Court?

• Is the issue at hand of monumental importance to due process and the implementation of U.S. antitrust laws?

McAndrews said that only one of these questions needs to be addressed for the court to consider the petition.

Because several other healthcare groups face similar problems with the insurance and medical communities, the ACA plans to circulate a draft of its petition to see whether any of these groups would be interested in filing an amicus brief with the court, indicating their support of ACA’s action.

The Supreme Court generally takes three to eight months to decide whether it will accept a case.

Source: American Chiropractic Association, www.amerchiro.org

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