UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty said in a leaked internal video that the insurance company plays an important role in guarding against "unnecessary" and "unsafe" care.
“We guard against the pressures that exist for unsafe care or for unnecessary care to be delivered in a way which makes the whole system too complex and ultimately unsustainable,” Witty said.
Fuck you, leech. YOU do not get to decide what is and is not necessary for a patient. The doctor and patient decide.
We should have a law that if an insurance company denies a claim, and upon external appeal it is found to clearly be medically necessary and covered, the insurance company should have to both pay for the procedure AND hand the customer a check equal to the full value of the procedure. Wrongfully deny a claim? Be prepared to pay double.
And this is how you get a completely sociopathic system held up by seemingly “moral” or “good” people.
In a general sense it’s hard to argue against unnecessary care. After all it’s right in the name. It’s unnecessary. And it’s hard to argue against managing personnel based on performance. Trying to audit every decision could be time consuming and expensive. Just put in a KPI (Key Performance Indicator) with respect to cost to company. If you approve $X amount of claims and your coworker approved $Y, when they need to downsize or trim the fat, you just look at X and Y and let go the one that approved more claims.
Each step can be kinda argued and supported in a vacuum. And that’s where these CEOs wilfully sit. They don’t explicit tell employees to deny more claims. They just make it more lucrative at every step to do so.
“We guard against the pressures that exist for unsafe care or for unnecessary care to be delivered in a way which makes the whole system too complex and ultimately unsustainable,” Witty said.
Fuck you, leech. YOU do not get to decide what is and is not necessary for a patient. The doctor and patient decide.
We should have a law that if an insurance company denies a claim, and upon external appeal it is found to clearly be medically necessary and covered, the insurance company should have to both pay for the procedure AND hand the customer a check equal to the full value of the procedure. Wrongfully deny a claim? Be prepared to pay double.
And this is how you get a completely sociopathic system held up by seemingly “moral” or “good” people.
In a general sense it’s hard to argue against unnecessary care. After all it’s right in the name. It’s unnecessary. And it’s hard to argue against managing personnel based on performance. Trying to audit every decision could be time consuming and expensive. Just put in a KPI (Key Performance Indicator) with respect to cost to company. If you approve $X amount of claims and your coworker approved $Y, when they need to downsize or trim the fat, you just look at X and Y and let go the one that approved more claims.
Each step can be kinda argued and supported in a vacuum. And that’s where these CEOs wilfully sit. They don’t explicit tell employees to deny more claims. They just make it more lucrative at every step to do so.