FIFTH DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL

STATE OF FLORIDA

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Case No. 5D2022-1505

LT Case No. 2020-12861-CODL

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FIRST ACCEPTANCE INSURANCE 

COMPANY, INC.,

Appellant,

v.

BELLEVIEW IMAGING CENTER,

LLC a/a/o YVONNE NALES,

Appellee.

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On appeal from the Circuit Court for Volusia County.

Angela A. Dempsey, Judge.

Michael K. Mittelmark and William J. McFarlane, III, of 

McFarlane Law, McFarlane Dolan & Prince, Coral Springs, for 

Appellant.

Chad A. Barr and Dalton Lee Gray, of Law Office of Chad A. 

Barr, P.A., Altamonte Springs, for Appellee.

July 19, 2024

EDWARDS, C.J.

The issue in this case involves the amount of reimbursement 

that an insurer providing Personal Injury Protection (“PIP”) 

benefits must pay when the health care provider submits a bill for 
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treating its insured which is less than the statutory schedule of 

maximum charges which the insurer utilized in its policy as its 

limit of PIP reimbursement. Summary judgments were entered in 

favor of the Appellee/health care provider, Belleview Imaging 

Center LLC, based upon an earlier case from this Court dealing 

with atypical policy language. The issue here has been settled by 

the Florida Supreme Court’s opinion in Allstate Insurance Co. v. 

Revival Chiropractic, LLC, 385 So. 3d 107 (Fla. 2024). Based upon 

that decision, we reverse the summary judgment entered in favor 

of Appellee and remand for entry of summary judgment in favor of 

Appellant, First Acceptance Insurance Company, Inc.1

In this case Appellee treated a patient who had PIP insurance 

provided by Appellant. As is customary, the insured patient 

assigned her PIP benefits to Appellee, which then submitted 

charges for the treatment to Appellant. The PIP policy provisions 

utilized by First Acceptance adopted a statutory schedule of 

maximum charges as its own schedule of maximum charges for 

reimbursing health care providers treating its insured. 

When Belleview Imaging submitted charges to Appellant for 

its insured patient seeking payment in an amount less than the 

insurer’s maximum reimbursement rate, First Acceptance 

reimbursed Belleview Imaging at the statutory rate of eighty 

percent of the billed amount, as is consistent with section 

627.736(1)(a), Florida Statutes (2017). Appellee sued, alleging

that it was entitled to payment in full of its charges given that they 

were below the statutory maximum scheduled amount for services 

adopted by Appellant.

In Revival Chiropractic the supreme court held that Florida’s 

statutory scheme for medical care provided through PIP called for 

reimbursement at the rate of eighty percent of the reasonable 

amount charged for necessary treatment limited by the statutory 

maximum benefit amount if the insurer had included that 

provision in its policy. The court held that the fact that a health 

1 The parties submitted competing motions for summary 

judgment in which they agreed that there were no issues of fact 

and that the issue was purely a legal question.
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care provider submitted a request for reimbursement at an 

amount lower than the maximum reimbursement amount did not 

entitle the provider to payment in full up to the maximum amount.

Rather, it would still receive eighty percent of the amount billed, 

up to the maximum amount. The supreme court’s detailed 

analysis is set forth fully in Revival Chiropractic and need not be 

repeated here.

The supreme court noted that one of the cases relied upon by 

courts granting summary judgments in favor of health care 

providers seeking full reimbursement for charges below the 

maximum scheduled amount came from this Court: Hands On 

Chiropractic PL v. GEICO General Insurance Co., 327 So. 3d 439 

(Fla. 5th DCA 2021). Another came from the Fourth District and 

also involved a GEICO policy: Geico Indemnity Co. v. Muransky 

Chiropractic P.A., 323 So. 3d 742 (Fla. 4th DCA 2021). The 

supreme court pointed out that the insurance policies involved in 

the just-cited cases contained provisions materially different from 

the provisions in the Allstate policy involved in Revival 

Chiropractic, 385 So. 3d at 112. The supreme court noted that 

Hands On Chiropractic and Muransky were decided without the 

benefit of its later-decided case, MRI Associates of Tampa, Inc. v. 

State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., 334 So. 3d 577 (Fla. 

2021). Id. Regarding those district court cases, the supreme court 

announced, “that they have been undermined to the extent that 

whatever they might have to say relevant to the issue in this case 

has been superseded by our analysis in MRI Associates.” Id. Thus, 

while controlling in their day, those two district court cases cannot 

support the summary judgment entered in favor of Belleview 

Imaging in this case, which we now reverse.

Accordingly, we reverse the summary judgment entered in 

favor of Belleview Imaging and remand for entry of summary 

judgment in favor of First Acceptance.

REVERSED and REMANDED.

WALLIS and SOUD, JJ., concur.
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Not final until disposition of any timely and 

authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or 

9.331.

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