Guest posting by Emile Gleeson
Throughout the semester, this course has focused on our changing healthcare system and the way that new technologies are changing the way we practice medicine. While this class touched on both the positive and negative aspects of integrating technology with medicine, I got the overall impression that, while there may be a bit of a learning curve, eventually these new technologies will improve our healthcare system. This got me thinking a lot about the general direction that our healthcare system is heading and whether the overall changes happening are more positive or more negative. Although this class seemed to focus more heavily on the positive changes, my recent experiences with the healthcare system made me more interested in some of the negative changes, especially when it comes to the insurance company’s role in patient care.
Recently, I went through a very frustrating process in which my insurance company would not approve a medical test that three different doctors deemed necessary for me to get until I tried 8 weeks of my insurance company’s own alternative treatment plan. Personally, I found this experience to be ridiculous, so I searched the web to try to see if other patients had been experiencing similar situations. While I couldn’t seem to find any patient stories similar to mine, I did find multiple posts by doctors discussing the modern-day medical insurance system and the way in which insurance companies more and more are overstepping their bounds and making medical decisions for the patient. Combining the thoughts of these doctors with my own recent experience has led me to conclude that the role of insurance companies in our healthcare system is not going in a good direction.
Doctors go through years of medical school and residency for a reason: making sound medical decisions requires a lot of in depth knowledge and training experience. Insurance companies, while still educated about healthcare, simply do not have this necessary knowledge base. When insurance companies approve or deny their patients’ treatment plans, they do so based on what treatment would cost the least for them to provide to the average patient. Insurance companies are focused on money, not patients’ health. We trust out doctors for a reason. Our doctors meet with us and see us an individual people. They evaluate our medical problems on an individual basis and figure out what the best treatment plan is for us, not for the average patient. Insurance companies don’t do this. If multiple doctors agree on a single treatment plan for a patient, insurance companies should not have the ability to override this treatment plan because they simply don’t have the knowledge or experience to see the patient’s medical needs in the same way that a doctor does. In our modern-day healthcare system, insurance companies are gaining more and more power to overstep their boundaries and make their patients’ medical decisions. This power needs to be checked before someone gets hurt.
Sources:
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2014/03/insurers-dictate-medical-decisions.html
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2014/06/whos-making-decisions-health-care.html
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/07/17/51365/gop-rep-health-insurance/