On October 28, 2024, a federal fraud lawsuit filed by GEICO against orthopedic surgeon Dr. Erik Bendiks and his practice, Apex Spine and Orthopaedics, which alleged more than $4.5 million in damages, was voluntarily dismissed by GEICO with no payment or concessions of any kind and no changes to the doctors’ treatment or billing practices.
GEICO’s 90-page lawsuit was filed in September 2023 in federal court in Charlotte, alleging that Dr. Bendiks, a Board-Certified Orthopedic Surgeon, and his team of other Board-Certified physicians at Apex Spine, had committed fraud in their treatment and billing of patients injured in automobile accidents who then made claims against GEICO. GEICO’s filing generated blaring headlines suggesting that Dr. Bendiks and his practice were frauds, with some of these media stories even depicting photographs of jail cells. These media stories also contained grave factual errors—for example, falsely identifying Dr. Bendiks’ practice as being associated with a completely unrelated practice that GEICO had accused of fraud.
Lawsuits like the one GEICO filed against Dr. Bendiks often end in settlements where the physicians pay hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to the insurer and submit to agreements where the physicians withdraw their right to be paid by the insurer ever again. But from the day GEICO’s lawsuit was filed through its voluntary dismissal more than a year later, Dr. Bendiks adamantly maintained his and his team’s complete innocence of each and every one of GEICO’s accusations. At every turn in the federal court proceedings, Dr. Bendiks and Apex Spine called out those accusations as completely baseless.
Secure in the knowledge that every single course of treatment and billing for their patients was medically necessary and appropriate and that they had done absolutely nothing wrong, Dr. Bendiks and Apex Spine chose to vigorously defend themselves and their reputations in court. They put their trust in the legal system to ultimately reveal the truth, trusting that they would ultimately be vindicated. In the federal court proceedings, they fought hard to expose the true details of GEICO’s claims handling, seeking to force GEICO to produce its confidential business documents and make its employees appear for depositions to testify under oath.
In the end, GEICO voluntarily dismissed its 90-page lawsuit. No payment or concessions of any kind were made, and no changes to Dr. Bendiks and Apex Spine’s treatment or billing practices were made either.
After more than a year of litigation, and after putting their faith in the legal system to protect their reputations and reveal the truth, Dr. Bendiks and his team at Apex Spine look forward to getting back to focusing on what they do best: serving the local community by treating their patients, including those less financially fortunate. “People who have been in automobile accidents often lack the financial resources to get the healthcare they need to recover,” said Dr. Bendiks. “At Apex, we’re here to help all those who have been injured. I’m especially proud of our track record of helping those less financially fortunate get back on the road to recovery.”
