NU Online News Service, Aug. 24, 3:11 p.m.EDT

Berkshire Hathaway’s auto insurance company, Geico, has filedsuit against numerous doctors and medical facilities in New Yorkover alleged fraudulent claims submitted to the insurer.

According to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in theEastern District of New York, Geico says the defendants “exploitedand abused” the state’s no-fault auto insurance system, engaging in“some of the most abusive practices” in the history of the no-faultsystem.

“In claim after claim after claim they have falsified testresults,” Geico says. “They have billed for fictitious servicesthat were never rendered as billed and in many cases their serviceshave been incompetent and rendered without regard to the welfare ofthe patients.”

During this “massive fraudulent scheme,” Geico says it has beenbilled $23 million. The insurer says it was defrauded out of morethan $12 million and seeks treble damages of about $36 million andan order that it does not have to pay any unpaid claims to thedefendants.

The complaint says many of the doctors were sued by Allstate in2009.

All the allegations center on abuse of the fee schedule codesfor “nerve conduction velocity tests,” according to thelawsuit.

As an example of the alleged fraud, Geico says the same testresults were submitted to the insurer by different medical centersunder different patient names.

Another medical center submitted the same alleged falsified testresults for two different patients on two different parts of thebody.

“This is physiologically impossible and showed no regard for thewelfare and interest of the patient,” Geico says.

The lead defendant is Dr. Barry Dublin, owner of Dublin Medicaland Flatlands Medical. Fourteen other doctors are named.