Bob Herman

ALT PHI Health, a national chain, is arguably the most aggressive company suing employers, which it claims are not “passive” bystanders in insurers’ refusal to fully pay awards. Other regional physician practices have sued some employers as well. But PHI and its army of attorneys have filed lawsuits against hundreds of companies, demanding they collectively pay tens of millions of dollars in unpaid out-of-network claims that it won in the federal arbitration process. PHI isn’t just suing small, local firms like Hancock’s. It’s also taking legal action against some of the largest corporations — Amazon, Walmart, Eli Lilly, United Airlines, General Motors, PepsiCo, State Farm, and Toyota, to name a few — as well as unions, counties, cities, states, public school districts, and universities.

ALT PHI has sued other health care organizations, including hospitals, nursing homes, and medical billing firms. It also has gone after nonprofits, such as the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland. In each instance, a worker or family member at these companies took an emergency medical helicopter, often at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars per trip. In some cases, PHI wasn’t sure what company it should be suing, but sued anyway. Several lawsuits named specific health insurers and employers as defendants, and then added “ABC CORP” or “XYZ CORP” as a placeholder. If the insurer or employer “is not in fact the plan sponsor … that covers the patient transported by PHI, then the identity of the plan sponsor is unknown to PHI, and this action is instead brought against ABC CORP,” one lawsuit reads.