Doctors ‘cannot be blamed for abuses’

Press, 14 January 1987, Page 6

Doctors ‘cannot be blamed for abuses’

Doctors cannot be blamed for abuses of the accident compensation system, said the vicepresident of the Canterbury division of the Medical Association, Dr Keith Gibb, yesterday. He was replying to comments made by an American Fulbright scholar, Mr Robert Selsor, that doctors often billed the Accident Compensation Corporation for nonaccident related conditions and padded a patient’s disability assessment so they received more compensation than they should. Dr Gibb said there was no justification for such statements. “Blaming doctors for problems with A.C.C. is like blaming the Weather Office when it rains.” i

Occasionally the system was abused when patients said their injuries were

caused by an accident rather than a medical condition.

"But we have no easy way to know whether our patients lie to us,” said Dr Gibb.

When the accident compensation system was first introduced; doctors had been told it was not their responsibility to decide who was not telling the truth, he said. “If we had any doubt we could ask A.C.C. to investigate themselves, otherwise we took the patient’s word for it” A Christchurch doctor, Dr Richard Climie, said the system made doctors the unwilling judge, jury and executioner of their patients.

“What would Mr Selsor suggest I do with an elderly pensioner who attributes the flare-up of her knee pain to a bump (hence most of the cost of

the treatment will be paid by A.C.C.) although it was quite likely just a spontaneous flare-up of her rheumatoid disease (and so not covered by A.C.C.)? “Am I supposed to attach her to a lie detector?”

With many medical conditions it was ?ot possible to say whether the problem was caused by “accidental injury” or not, said Dr Climie.

"The lawyers and accountants who run the Accident Compensation Corporation don’t understand how complex medical problems can be, how many factors may be involved to decide if an injury is accidental or not, especially when in the present chaotic health system the patient may save hundreds of dollars in medical costs simply by saying ‘I sprained it’ or T bumped it.’ ”