Should Disability Insurance Companies Be Deciding What Kind of Care You Receive?
What role should your insurance company play in determining your treatment options? In our article, “Can Your Disability Insurer Dictate the Terms of Your Care?” by Ed Comitz and Michael Vincent, we discussed how, depending on the terms of your disability insurance policy, insurers can dictate what care you should receive, and whether you can be forced to undergo surgery in order to continue to receive policy benefits.
When prescribing you a specific treatment or medication, your doctor usually has very specific goals in mind. First, they want to medically treat you in the best way possible. They want to provide you with the best means for curing or coping with your situation after considering the totality of your circumstances and your recovery goals. Second, they want to make you feel better and help you recover from your ailments if possible.
For example, if surgery isn’t an option for your consistently high levels of pain, your doctor may prescribe strong medication to give you the relief you need. They may effectively manage the pain you struggle, but the side effects may impede you from returning to work.
Unlike doctors, insurance companies have one goal in mind: to get you off of their claims list and not pay monthly claim benefits. They want you treated in a way that returns you to work in the short run and may not be as concerned about the long term side effects or repercussions of alternative treatment options.
One way they accomplish this is by having their doctor contact your doctor to discuss treatment alternatives. Such alternative methods include using less effective medications that would allow you to return to work. A strategy they employ is to point your doctor to studies like those outlined in articles like “Disability experts question long-term opioid use,” or “Reed Group Releases New Opioid Treatment Guidance in Disability Guidelines.”
What many people don’t realize is that the Reed Group, the company who released the “updated expert guidelines,” is a subsidiary of Guardian Life Insurance Company, parent company of Berkshire Life. This company has a substantial incentive to downplay the safety and effectiveness of drugs, like opioids, that are able to manage acute pain, but render patients unable to return to work because of medication side effects. These companies want to point your doctors to these guidelines to influence their bottom line by getting you back to work quickly.
The problem with this tactic is that these blanket guidelines do not take into account your pain, your needs, or your situation. Yes, the alternative options may get you back to work, but in the long run you may experience repercussions. Letting claims consultants, who aren’t medical professionals, or the insurance company’s doctors determine your care and treatment is a conflict of interest for insurance companies and is not always in your best interests.
