this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2024
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I work for a neurologist practice, and the amount I have to argue with insurance (and inevitably have to get the neurologist on the phone to directly request something for many) is insane. A good chunk of my job isn't providing care, but arguing with insurance that the care is necessary. These companies are actively delaying patient care, and try to blame the physician whenever possible.
Wildly infuriating, especially when the denials are worded along the lines of "we reviewed this, and don't consider it medically necessary". Motherfucker, a doctor said it was necessary and listed the clinical reasons why this test or procedure would be beneficial. Nothing has radicalized me for universal healthcare more than working in healthcare.
How is that even legal? How is someone who hasn’t examined the patient and isn’t their physician allowed to make treatment decisions? If they even have the necessary qualifications.
Because of money!
Every time you see something that feels illegal but isn't, or that makes no sense in general, look for the money trail. There's always one, and it always leads to the explanation.
In this case, insurance companies have made such an absolute ass ton of money by killing off their customers that they have become a political entity. They now use their deep pockets to lobby politicians to keep their scam legal.
This is 100% the answer
They're technically not making treatment decisions, they're making payment decisions about treatment decisions. Effectively it's a distinction without a difference though. And it's usually a "doctor" working for the healthcare company rubber stamping the denials. It's a thoroughly shitty system.
Specifically, it's the doctors who technically passed med school, but only just. They're not going to practice medicine anywhere else, but they can make good money writing up legally protected reports that say "in my professional opinion, this patient's lack of arms does not prevent him from going back to his roofing job".
People love to shit on the VA, because they're the largest American healthcare provider in the country so there's a lot of bad stories
But my last MRI went like this:
Doctor: you need an MRI, let me check if it's open. (Less than a minute on laptop). Ok, go down to room ____ and they can get you in now.
There's a huge up front cost for that machine, so for profit hospitals went everyone to use it to make the money back, and insurance wants no one to use it so they don't have to pay.
Take insurance out of the picture, take the hospital trying to make money out of the picture. And it's really that easy. No one pushes for unnecessary tests, no one tries to prevent necessary tests. And there's a huge push towards preventive medicine, because it's cheaper to catch shit early.
We already pay more than what it would cost, it's just the healthcare industry donates to both parties, so as long as both standards are "at least they're not the other team" shits never going to get fixed.
If we hold higher standards than that, it won't take many election cycles to get change to actually happen
It's cheaper to catch shit early.
This is a huge takeaway. Insurance doesn't care about your longevity, health, quality of life or even long term costs.
People hop insurance providers all the time so the companies are literally focused on profits quarter by quarter.
On the flip side, I can't imagine being the person arguing for the insurance companies makes them a better or happy person in the long term. Being a devil's henchman, over time it must destroy important parts of them like empathy, trust in people, and their basic human decency. Virtues that are needed now more than ever in society.
Well yeah that's why they keep doing it
I expect it’s like any call center - the computer spits out a result and they have a script to follow, and are not allowed to stray from the script
This part isnt brought up enough. You can take more severe examples, folks working in slaughter houses, military translators marking targets based on vague phrasing, and they have well documented negative effects on people who work those jobs in general.
Theres no reason to think someone working an insurance claims job might not develop the same type of problems if they feel they are helping cause harm, even if to a lesser degree.
And some doctors themselves will be hesitant to give care that might not be provably required beyond all doubt but is objectively prudent.
I feel like we're getting to the point that this needs to be an election deciding issue. It won't be this upcoming election, but probably the one after where the presidency isn't on the line. We need to ignore republican/democrat talking points and elect based on a will to completely revamp the system. Obama tried but it didn't go far enough. Once its bad enough that people are willing to cross party lines to fix it, then you'll see change, and I (probably too optimistically) think we're almost there.
Hospitals should unionize and sue the the ever-loving shit out of insurance companies for lost time. Not like our neoliberal politicians are going to do anything about it.