OSTERHAUS, J.
Stand-Up MRI of Tallahassee, P.A., an assignee of fourteen named insureds, challenges the reimbursements made by the Appellants, Allstate Fire & Casualty Insurance Company, Allstate Property & Casualty
We accepted jurisdiction of the fourteen consolidated cases and now conclude that Allstate's insurance policy provided adequate notice of its election to use the Medicare fee schedules referenced in § 627.736(5)(a)2., Florida Statutes.
The basic facts in these consolidated appeals are not disputed. As the assignee of PIP benefits of Allstate insureds, Stand-Up MRI sued in county court alleging that Allstate improperly used Medicare fee schedules to calculate PIP coverage reimbursements without adequately notifying its insureds. We review the challenge to Allstate's policy language de novo, as though it were being considered for the first time in this appeal. Virtual Imaging, 141 So.3d at 152; Spaid v. Integon Indem. Corp., 143 So.3d 949, 950 (Fla. 1st DCA 2014), reh'g denied (Aug. 18, 2014).
In Virtual Imaging, the Florida Supreme Court considered the same PIP notice issue involving another insurer's policy. There too, an MRI-provider had supplied services and then disputed the insurer's authority to limit reimbursements under Medicare fee schedules. In deciding the case, the Court provided an extensive overview and analysis of the history of Florida's PIP statutory scheme that informs the analysis here, including the 2008 amendment authorizing insurers to limit reimbursements by the use of fee schedules. Virtual Imaging, 141 So.3d at 152-56. In sum, § 627.736(1)(a) requires automobile insurers to provide PIP coverage for eighty percent of all "reasonable expenses" for medically necessary services, such as those provided by Stand-Up MRI in this case.
The Florida Motor Vehicle No-Fault Law provides two ways of determining whether expenses are "reasonable" for purposes of insurer reimbursements. The first is a fact-dependent methodology that takes into account the service provider's usual and customary charges, community-specific reimbursement levels, and other relevant information. See § 627.736(5)(a)1., Fla. Stat.; Virtual Imaging, 141 So.3d at 155-56. This is the default methodology for calculating PIP
The crux of the PIP dispute here concerns whether Allstate's policy language adequately notifies insureds of its election to limit reimbursements via the Medicare fee schedules in § 627.736(5)(a)2., as required by Virtual Imaging. Stand-Up MRI argues that Allstate's policy fails under Virtual Imaging because it is ambiguous. But Allstate points to language in Part III of its policy as having satisfied Virtual Imaging's notice requirement:
We agree with Allstate that the policy gives sufficient notice of its election to limit reimbursements by use of the fee schedules. Our conclusion stems from the policy's plain statement that reimbursements "shall" be subject to the limitations in § 627.736, including "all fee schedules." See Virtual Imaging, 141 So.3d at 157 (quoting State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Menendez, 70 So.3d 566, 569-70 (Fla.2011)) ("If the language used in an insurance policy is plain and unambiguous, a court must interpret the policy in accordance with the plain meaning of the language used so as to give effect to the policy as it was written."). Section 627.736(5)(a)2., in turn, refers to Medicare fee schedule-based limitations and provides that "insurer[s] may limit reimbursement to 80 percent of the ... schedule of maximum charges." Virtual Imaging requires no other magic words from Allstate's policy and its simple notice requirement is satisfied by Allstate's language limiting "[a]ny amounts payable" to the fee schedulebased limitations found in the statute.
Moreover, Allstate's policy is unlike the one found deficient in Virtual Imaging. There, Geico failed to "indicate in any way... that it intended to limit its reimbursement to a predetermined amount of set reasonable medical expenses" using the fee schedules. Id. at 158-59 (emphasis added). Here, by contrast, Allstate's policy expressly limits reimbursements by "all fee schedules" in the statute, which is consistent with Virtual Imaging's simple notice requirement.
Finally, Stand-Up MRI argues that Allstate's use of the phrase "subject to ... all fee schedules" fails to provide sufficient notice that reimbursements will always be limited by the fee schedules. In its view, "subject to" means only that Allstate had the option to limit reimbursements per the Medicare fee schedule, not that it would so limit reimbursements. But we see no ambiguity here because the language of the policy makes reimbursements subordinate to the fee schedules in rather unmistakable terms. When expressing the hierarchical effect of overlapping provisions, the phrase "subject to" is very commonly used to signal subordination. See Bryan A. Garner, Garner's Dictionary of Legal Usage 616 (2011 ed.); see also St. Augustine Pools, Inc. v. James M. Barker, Inc., 687 So.2d 957, 958 (Fla. 5th DCA 1997) (citing Black's Law Dictionary 1425 (6th ed. 1990)) (defining "subject to" as "liable, subordinate, subservient, inferior, obedient to; governed or affected by; provided that; provided; answerable"). Allstate's fee schedule reference is included within the "Limits of Liability" heading in Part III of Allstate's policy, in the same Part setting forth Allstate's responsibility to reimburse eighty percent of reasonable expenses for medically necessary services. And the provision says that
Thus we conclude that Allstate's policy language gave legally sufficient notice to its insureds of its election to use the Medicare fee schedules as required by Virtual Imaging. We answer the certified question in the affirmative, reverse the final judgments entered in the cases consolidated in this appeal, and remand the cases for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
WOLF and MAKAR, JJ., concur.
(emphasis added).