Dr. Donna Christensen: Anthem’s policy unfair, harmful to patients
Deciding whether the pain you feel is an emergency or not should be left to licensed medical professionals. However, as reported in your published story, “Is it an emergency? Insurer makes patients question ER visit” (modbee.com, Nov. 9), patients in the United States are being forced to make that determination themselves to avoid being stuck paying thousands of dollars in medical bills. This is a result of Anthem, America’s second-largest insurer, changing its emergency department policy, citing the need to unburden overcrowded emergency rooms and decrease the high costs of providing emergency care.
This policy change goes against findings of a recent University of California at San Francisco study, in which researchers found that defining what constitutes an “avoidable” visit is arbitrary, and determining this after the fact overlooks the disparity between initial symptoms and final diagnosis.
As long-time health care advocates, we urge Anthem to fix its policy. We believe it violates the basic tenets of the insurer/patient agreement and provides yet another example of abusive practices that prevent Americans from accessing quality health care.
Dr. Donna Christensen, Consumers for Quality Care Board, Washington D.C.
This story was originally published November 16, 2017 at 1:02 PM with the headline "Dr. Donna Christensen: Anthem’s policy unfair, harmful to patients."