Here's what I saw a few days ago. Could be why it was moving. Has both positive and negative stuff in it.
Collecting even 50 % would be a massive haul for them.
JMO
Mesa Pharmacy Clears $100M in Lien Claims for 2016
By Greg Jones State: CaliforniaTopic: Top - 1341 views - Average time spent on item: 28 minutes- Popular with: Legal - 14 shares
California drug compounder Mesa Pharmacy said it stopped filling prescriptions on a lien basis earlier this year, but the company is still pouring new liens into the state’s workers’ compensation system.
The 9,196 liens the Irvine pharmacy filed in the first six months of the year account for 4.3% of the 214,000 liens the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau says were filed during the period.
This month alone, the company filed 1,030 liens with a total claimed value of $7.25 million. It filed 12,247 liens with a total claimed value of $104.2 million since the start of the year.
Mesa filed more than twice as many liens in the 10 months of this year as it did in all of 2015, according to a review of the Division of Workers’ Compensation’s Electronic Adjudication Management System. Last year, the company filed 6,105 liens with a claimed value of $49.8 million. Liens filed by Mesa last year accounted for 1.7% of all claims that were submitted.
Praxsyn Corp., in acquiring Mesa Pharmacy in 2013, announced plans to target the sale of compound topical creams to the workers’ compensation industry. In its 2014 annual filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the company reported $66.6 million in net revenue and said almost all of that came from selling compounds to injured workers in California.
But it doesn’t appear the largess of California’s work comp system continued for Praxsyn and its Mesa Pharmacy, or if it ever existed at all.
Praxsyn’s last financial report filed with the SEC in November 2015 notes that it counts as net revenue “the amount each respective insurance company and workers’ compensation system are expected to pay us.” Pharmacy revenue is “recognized when prescriptions are verified and filled, and customer shipments are performed,” the company explained.
The company hasn’t filed a full report for the 2015 fiscal year, nor has it filed first- or second-quarter reports for 2016. The company in March, April and August said in SEC filings that it could not complete its financial statements “without unreasonable effort or expense.”
Praxsyn hinted that it was having difficulties collecting on its comp invoices in an unsigned letter written to investors in April. The company said it generated a “substantial working capital deficit” in 2015, which it addressed by cutting marketing debt by $5 million and cutting payroll by $500,000.
“However, to ensure that this situation will not (be) repeated, we will no longer process workers’ compensation related prescriptions unless our costs are fully funded prior to the date of service,” the letter says.
Greg Sundem, chief executive officer of Praxsyn, said in a June letter to investors that the company was about to start sales of pre-approved compounds in work comp claims. In the same letter, Sundem said the company plans to file its overdue fiscal reports “in the next few weeks.”
And in August, the company said it was growing outside of workers’ compensation and that Mesa Pharmacy started accepting prescriptions for personal injury patients.
A review of liens filed under the name “Mesa Pharmacy Irvine” shows the number of claims the company was filing grew steadily from fewer than 500 in the first quarter of 2015 to a high of 4,719 in the first quarter of 2016. The volume dropped off noticeably in the third quarter of 2016, when the company filed 2,021 new liens, compared to 4,447 filed in the previous quarter.
Praxsyn didn’t return calls from WorkCompCentral asking about the 1,030 new liens filed in October. It is not known if the company is clearing out a backlog accumulated when it was still filling prescriptions on a lien basis or if it is employing a strategy to delay having to deal with new lien requirements that take effect at the start of the year.
Gov. Jerry Brown on Sept. 30 signed into law SB 1160, by Sen. Tony Mendoza, D-Artesia, requiring service providers to submit a declaration stating they are eligible to file a lien. starting on Jan. 1. The declaration is not due until July 1 for liens already on file at the start of the year.
SB 1160 requires a lien claimant to declare under penalty of perjury that he or she is a worker’s treating physician providing care through a medical provider network or is otherwise authorized to treat the patient, have determined the employer does not have an MPN, that treatment was provided for an emergency medical condition, or has documentation showing treatment was neglected or unreasonably refused.
During a recent webinar to explore the impact of SB 1160 on lien claimants, former Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board Judge Pam Foust pointed out that by filing before the start of the year, service providers could buy themselves six extra months to see how the new law plays out.
Peter Melton, a spokesman for the DWC, said in an email Wednesday that there may well be an uptick in lien filings at the end of the year. But there is no evidence that is happening yet.
“In fact, there has been a decrease in liens filed in October (16,722 as of Wednesday), although that number will certainly increase with several more days to go in the month,” he said. “The number of liens filed has been consistently around 21,000 to 22,000 since July.”
