A.C.C. angers medical heads

Press, 22 June 1989, Page 22

A.C.C. angers medical heads

PA Auckland Medical heads have reacted angrily to plans by the Accident Compensation Corporation to obtain second opinions from its own medical experts on long-term compensation clients.

The Medical Association has accused the corporation of being more concerned with trying to save itself money than meeting its responsibilities.

The association’s chairman, Dr Lewis King, said the suggestion that patients were choosing to remain on compensation when they could be back in the workforce was both inaccurate and a red herring.

A senior Auckland orthopaedic surgeon has questioned the intentions of the corporation. Mr Geoffrey Lamb, who once sat on the corporation medical advisory committee, fears some long-term accident compensation clients might be put at a disadvantage if the corporation provides its own medical assessors.

“Anxiety has been expressed on behalf of some clients that staff employees of the corporation could be placed under pressure to provide the answers the corporation requires, which may not

always be in the best interest of the client,” Mr Lamb said.

Independent medical assessors had always been available to the corporation, and it was important that their services be retained. “There has never been any obstruction to the provision of a second, or third, independent medical opinion,” he said. “What the corporation want is people on their own payroll who will give the opinions that the corporation wants.” Mr Lamb, who is also a past president of the Orthopaedic Association, agreed there were people who abused the accident compensation system. “The corporation is trying to reduce costs, and that is fine,” he said.

However, “use of second independent opinions preserves safeguards for clients.”

He recommended continued use of the independent scheme. The Accident Compensation Corporation’s man-

aging director, Mr Jeff Chapman, has dismissed Mr Lamb’s assertions as rubbish.

He said that if the corporation were legally able to appoint its own medical experts to produce second opinions on long-term compensation clients, it would do so. “What Mr Lamb has suggested is that the medical profession would prostitute itself for the corporation, and I think that is silly,” he said. Dr King said that while there might be some fraud, the key to tackling compensation costs lay in prevention and rehabilitation.

The corporation had to address its own administrative inefficiencies and failings in the rehabilitative arena.

Dr King said the corporation directive in January which removed chiropractors, osteopaths, counsellors and speech therapists from the treatments covered by the scheme had undermined its responsibilities in rehabilitating patients.