TRENTON, N.J., February 11 – Two key legislators are attempting to torpedo the new proposed medical fee schedule being drafted by the Insurance Department.

Democrat Assemblymen Neil Cohen, Chairman of the Assembly Insurance Committee, and Wilfredo Caraballo, a former state public advocate, have introduced legislation to block the new schedule.

Caraballo said the departments new proposal goes far beyond the legislative intent for a new fee schedule for payments of medical treatment of persons with personal injury protection (PIP) medical coverage for car accident injuries.

The proposed medical fee schedule would scrap the usual customary and reasonable rate payment doctrine and replace it with fees based on Medicare rates for 1,000 different procedures for injuries as minor as cuts on the forehead, to multiple fractures and loss of limbs.

The schedule is aimed at controlling the rising costs of medical care that is one of the major reasons New Jerseys average car insurance premium averages $1,300 per year, the highest in the nation.

The opposition bill introduced by Cohen and Caraballo, A3703, would keep in place the existing fee schedule that has been in force since 2001. The bill calls for allowing payments to continue to be made at the usual customary and reasonable rate charged by 75 percent of doctors within a specific region of the state, and sets fees for 92 different medical procedures.

The legislation was released for future vote by the full Assembly, despite a written plea from Insurance Commissioner Steven Goldman to postpone action on the legislation because the new fee schedule has not yet been adopted.

At the committee hearing, the New Jersey Medical Society, which represents 6,000 physicians in the state, said that it is opposed to the new schedule, and threatened a lawsuit if it is enacted. The group said the new fee schedule would reduce payments to doctors by 35 percent, and its president-elect, Richard Scott, warned it will make it even more challenging for a physician to practice emergency medicine and treat these patients.

Richard Stokes, of the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI), meanwhile, opposed the legislators bill. He called it unnecessary, and said that it would further delay the implementation of a crucial piece of the car insurance reform that would place limited controls on the ever-escalating costs of medical services to those injured in traffic accidents.