I am so happy to see that people are beginning to listen to what we, as physicians, have been complaining about for many years now.
People have got to understand that insurance companies are not designed or built for the consumers, nor are they designed and built for physicians. They are designed, as all profit entities are (forget for a moment that some of them claim to be nonprofit), to… You guessed it… Make a profit. I know that most of my colleagues feel that profiting off of the misery and suffering of others is questionable at best.
Up until now, they’ve had very little incentive to protect the data. I think that’s going to change, but a little too little too late?
I just recently received, from our illustrious nonprofit insurance company, UPMC, not a notice that I happen to be prescribing two medication of a similar class (something that they have been doing for a while, thank their little hearts), But actually a requirement for a justification for using two medicines of a similar class (namely, olanzapine and lithium) , in a very complicated patient before they would prior authorize the medication. Ironically, it’s a situation, where I’m actually slowly reducing the medication for a patient that I just inherited. However, since I reduced the olanzapine, they decided they could get a new prior request (which they refused by the way).
This is not only bad for the patients, bad for physicians, bad for pharmacies, it’s just downright Evil.
So keep up the pressure Owen. God knows we need to see some change for the sake of our patients.
I am so happy to see that people are beginning to listen to what we, as physicians, have been complaining about for many years now.
People have got to understand that insurance companies are not designed or built for the consumers, nor are they designed and built for physicians. They are designed, as all profit entities are (forget for a moment that some of them claim to be nonprofit), to… You guessed it… Make a profit. I know that most of my colleagues feel that profiting off of the misery and suffering of others is questionable at best.
Up until now, they’ve had very little incentive to protect the data. I think that’s going to change, but a little too little too late?
I just recently received, from our illustrious nonprofit insurance company, UPMC, not a notice that I happen to be prescribing two medication of a similar class (something that they have been doing for a while, thank their little hearts), But actually a requirement for a justification for using two medicines of a similar class (namely, olanzapine and lithium) , in a very complicated patient before they would prior authorize the medication. Ironically, it’s a situation, where I’m actually slowly reducing the medication for a patient that I just inherited. However, since I reduced the olanzapine, they decided they could get a new prior request (which they refused by the way).
This is not only bad for the patients, bad for physicians, bad for pharmacies, it’s just downright Evil.
So keep up the pressure Owen. God knows we need to see some change for the sake of our patients.
Vint Blackburn, MD.
Crucial issues. Please share with everyone
Terrific! I'm gonna share this on Linked in.
Please! Share with the world.
up to 100K views on one of those videos!