New Jersey health care lawyer Eric Katz is a prominent advocate for New Jersey physicians, dentists and other health care providers, and is a senior partner at Mazie Slater Katz & Freeman, LLC, a leading New Jersey class action and trial law firm. Mr. Katz represents health care providers and their patients in all types of managed care disputes including usual, customary and reasonable (“UCR”) disagreements, prompt payment disputes, unlawful bundling and downcoding of claims, improper coverage denials, class actions and managed care audits. In just the last few years, Mr. Katz has recovered several millions of dollars for his physician clients on UCR and prompt pay issues alone.
In November 2015, Mr. Katz testified before the New Jersey Assembly Financial Institutions and Insurance Committee in opposition to proposed healthcare bills that would damage the relationship between out-of-network doctors and their patients and make it more difficult for doctors to advocate on behalf of their patients against the health insurance industry.
In June 2013, Mr. Katz successfully argued on behalf of the respondent, John Ivan Sutter, M.D. and the 20,000 member physician class in the Supreme Court of the United States in the matter of Oxford Health Plans v. Sutter, in which the nation's highest Court in a unanimous decision upheld an arbitrator's award authorizing a physician class action to resolve doctors' claim payment disputes with Oxford.
A leading New Jersey class action lawyer, Mr. Katz has been appointed lead class counsel in many managed care class actions and among his many triumphs achieved a landmark $39 million class action settlement on behalf of tens of thousands of New Jersey physicians against Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield, the largest health insurer in the state, relating to the carrier’s failure to process claims timely, appropriately and a national class action settlement on behalf of dentists against Delta Dental of New Jersey, and a dentist class action settlement against Horizon Blue Cross. Mr. Katz has shaped the law on class actions as a result of major court victories on matters such as the rights of plaintiffs to sue in the forum of their choice, and the rights of consumers and other victims to bring a class action even when there is an arbitration clause in a contract.
Mr. Katz is a certified civil trial attorney, a distinction held by less than 2% of New Jersey attorneys and is often interviewed by the media as a champion of the rights of health care providers and their patients.
Research and Writing Editor, Pace Law Review, 1990-1991. Law Clerk, Hon. Lawrence Weiss, Superior Court of New Jersey, Union County, 1991-1992. Co-Author: New Jersey Products Liability and Toxic Tort Law, with Hon. William A. Dreier, P.J.A.D. (Retired) and Hon. John E. Keefe, P.J.A.D. (Retired), published by Gann Law Books Publishing, 1994 and annually thereafter. Co-Author: Federal Civil Procedure Before Trial: Third Circuit Pleadings,with Robert M. Leonard, pub. by Lawyers Cooperative Publishing, 1996. Author: "Removing the Fungibility Requirement from the Market Share Liability Rule - Why it Can Work in Non-DES Cases," 3 Prod. Liab. L.J. 32, 1991; "Striking the Peremptory Challenge from Civil Litigation: 'Hey, Batson,Stay Where You Belong!" 11 Pace L. Rev. 357, 1991. Million Dollar Advocates Forum. Member, Union County Planning Board, 1993-1996; Million Dollar Advocates Forum. Member, Board of Trustees, Berkeley Heights Community Pool Corporation, 1999-2004.
