GEICO is accusing two Florida chiropractic clinics of running a multi‑year PIP billing scheme that it says siphoned more than $1.37 million from the insurer.
In a civil action filed on January 5, 2026, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, West Palm Beach Division, four GEICO companies allege that chiropractor Chris Lavoris Thompson, D.C., fellow chiropractor Mark Laudadio, D.C., and their entities – Chris Thompson PA d/b/a Health and Wellness Chiropractic Centers and South Florida Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Center, LLC – built an operation that, according to GEICO, centered on fraudulent personal injury protection (PIP) billing.
On the face of the filing, GEICO says the defendants “wrongfully obtained” more than $1,370,000.00 by submitting “thousands of fraudulent and unlawful” no‑fault/PIP charges since at least 2019, and that more than $75,000.00 in additional PIP claims are still pending and unpaid. The insurer asks the court to declare that it does not have to pay those outstanding bills.
The dispute turns on Florida’s Motor Vehicle No‑Fault Law, which requires auto insurers to pay PIP benefits only for services that are both medically necessary and lawfully provided. The statute defines “medically necessary” services as those a prudent physician would provide to prevent, diagnose, or treat an illness or injury, in accordance with generally accepted standards of medical practice, clinically appropriate in type, frequency, extent, site, and duration, and not primarily for the convenience of the patient or provider. It also ties payment to lawful operation, defined as substantial compliance with all relevant criminal, civil, and administrative requirements of state and federal law related to medical services or treatment.
According to GEICO’s filing, in the claims it has identified, almost none of the insureds whom the defendants purported to treat suffered significant injuries from what the document describes as relatively minor automobile accidents. To the extent they were injured, GEICO says, they generally had soft tissue sprains and strains. Even so, the company alleges the clinics routinely billed for higher‑level initial and follow‑up examinations and then placed patients into pre‑determined treatment protocols involving physical therapy, chiropractic services, extracorporeal shockwave therapy (ESWT), home medical equipment, including rigid lumbar orthoses, and other services and goods.
The document also focuses on clinic licensing and ownership rules under Florida’s Health Care Clinic Act. That law generally requires entities that provide health services and bill for reimbursement to hold a clinic license, unless they qualify for a “wholly owned” exemption that demands active supervision by licensed practitioner‑owners and compliance with all applicable laws. GEICO alleges Health and Wellness and South Florida Rehab were “clinics” under the Act but never had clinic licenses or physician medical directors, did not legitimately qualify for the wholly owned exemption, and purported to provide services beyond the scope of their chiropractic licenses. Under the statute, a charge by a clinic required to be licensed but not so licensed, or otherwise operating in violation of the Act, is deemed an unlawful charge and is noncompensable and unenforceable.
GEICO further claims the defendants violated Florida’s Patient Brokering Act, Anti‑Kickback Statute, and Patient Self‑Referral Act by using cross‑referral arrangements between Health and Wellness and South Florida Rehab. The filing alleges that Thompson, who owned Health and Wellness and co‑owned South Florida Rehab with Laudadio, caused practitioners to refer insureds between the two clinics, including referrals tied to emergency medical condition determinations that increased potential PIP reimbursement from $2,500.00 to $10,000.00 per insured.
The complaint also alleges that “physical therapy” services were performed, to the extent they were performed at all, by unlicensed and unsupervised individuals, contrary to Florida’s Physical Therapy Practice Act, and that claim forms misrepresented who actually performed or directly supervised services. GEICO says the defendants engaged in a general business practice of waiving, or failing to make a good‑faith effort to collect, PIP deductibles and co‑payments, which it contends violates Florida’s False and Fraudulent Insurance Claims Statute. The filing notes that under the No‑Fault Law, insurers are not required to pay for upcoded services, knowingly false or misleading statements relating to claims or charges, or bills that fail to substantially meet statutory billing requirements.
Alongside state‑law theories, GEICO asserts federal racketeering claims under 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961 et seq., alleging that Health and Wellness and South Florida Rehab functioned as enterprises using the mails to submit fraudulent billing over a period of years. The insurer seeks declaratory relief, treble damages under civil RICO, compensatory and punitive damages on certain claims, interest, costs, and attorneys’ fees.
For now, these are allegations at the outset of a federal case. No court has made findings on the merits, and the defendants have not been found liable for any wrongdoing.
