A Calgary doctor suing a personal injury lawyer because the doc didn’t get 50% of the referral $$$ A lawsuit claiming a doctor was not paid for referring patients to an injury lawyer is raising questions. http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Canada/Calgary/ID/2444924182/
Author Archives: Admin2
Insurers promise discounts to drivers who allow in-car monitoring
The devices could lead to discounts for customers and fewer losses for insurers, although it’s not yet certain how many drivers will be attracted by the prospect of having their performance constantly monitored.
Why Ontario’s medical tourism threatens medicare: Walkom
By letting hospitals solicit wealthy foreigners, Ontario’s Liberal government has quietly opened the door to two-tier health care. Ontario’s Liberal government has long styled itself the champion of public medicare. In some ways it is. But its quiet decision to let public hospitals offer medical services to well-heeled foreigners threatens to erode the very system that the Liberals say they are trying to bolster.
Automobile Insurance in Ontario may be Complex: Know Your Coverages
There isn’t any arguing that car insurance coverage in Ontario has been solid with dark clouds for a few years now. From confusion and adjustments to the coverages and coverage limits, authorities reform, and the highest charges in North America Ontario, the automobile insurance coverage trade may benefit with some clarity.
http://www.timminstoday.com/2014/04/02/automobile-insurance-ontario-may-complex-know-coverages/
FAIR Submission to Auto Insurance 3 Year Review
We now have an insurance industry that appears to be spending more money to assess injuries than it does treating those injuries and this practice drives the claims costs up dramatically. Some insurers will assess victims until they get the report they want. Or pay exorbitant prices to assessors for preparation for court hearings that equates to more than they would pay in a year of income replacement. Those are the same claims costs that Ontario’s insurers complain about and that are generated at their end of the business. Rather than control their spending, it has become a game of slash the benefits at every opportunity to preserve their profit margins. It’s irresponsible to pass on the expenses of the often incompetent insurer or their deceptive business practices onto the claimant or pass these costs on to all of Ontario’s drivers through premiums.
Canada Insurance News Blog submission to FSCO 3 Year Review March 2014
I used to wonder why something as simple as insurance has gotten so very, very, out of
control. Out of control insurers, out of control profits, out of control wordhirlings, out of control pay-for-hire doctors. I have witnessed what they will do to protect their industry full of deceit, it disgusts me. CanadaInsuranceNewsSubmissionThreeYearReview2014
Ontario Psychological Association submission to FSCO 3 Year Review March 2014
Continuing barriers to timely investment in the rehabilitation of accident victims with impairments and functional limitations due to mental and behavioural disorders are seen in:
1. Failure to follow evidence based Guidelines by professionals and insurers;
2. Insurers’ failure to communicate with their insureds and their health professionals;
3. Insurers’ failure to take responsibility for adjudicating files including: delays in treatment plan reviews; failure to refer proposed treatment plans to appropriate IEs when such is clearly indicated; and failure to determine if the IE has correctly applied the SABS test;
4. Inappropriate denial of assessment and treatment of crash victims with mental disorders, including denial based on the severity of the physical injury and assertion that the Minor Injury cap applies;
5. Crash victims with serious mental disorders were denied the right in 2010 to have their psychologists confirm catastrophic mental disorders and this professional responsibility was removed from psychologists. The group with the greatest expertise in diagnosis of mental disorders and measurement of function cannot utilize their expertise for those who require an analysis of catastrophic impairment. No scientific or policy rationale was ever advanced for limiting this role to physicians. OPA Submission for 3 year review Mar 31 2014 final
Ontario Rehab Alliance Submission to the FSCO 3 Year Review
When it comes to buying auto insurance consumers don’t know what they are buying and they are not getting what they think they paid for. Tragically, most don’t find this out until they are injured. Most drivers assume that their medical and rehabilitation needs will be covered by the basic package most of us have, and the shortfall will be easily picked up by our publicly funded healthcare system. But they’re wrong. The publicly funded system is severely underfunded and the current cap of up to $50,000 in med/rehab coverage for serious, non-catastrophic injuries which is, practically speaking, often ‘converted’ to the much lower spending cap of the Minor Injury Guideline, with a maximum of $3,500, is insufficient. This amount must cover not only physical injuries but also treatment for debilitating mental health conditions that can result from an accident. And, in many cases of minor injuries, claimants’ treatment dollars often never exceed the initial $2,200, when provider applications demonstrating the need for the additional $1,300 are often denied. Our survey respondents reported that 26% of MIG clients who clearly required more care were unable to access more than $2,200 of MIG treatment dollars.
SUBMISSION TO FSCO’s THREE YEAR REVIEW- Ontario Rehab Alliance
Ontario Trial Lawyers Association submission to Auto Insurance 3 Year Review
Insurers spent $171 million on “insurer initiated assessments” for victims who were injured in accidents between January 1, 2011 and June 30, 2013. During that same time period, insurers spent $359 million on treatment for that same group. For every dollar that insurers spent treating someone to help them get better, they spent almost 50 cents assessing them. Those assessments, which often lead to denials of treatment, have a huge negative impact on a victim’s emotional well-being and help to create the adversarial first-party benefits system that often forces victims to litigate with their insurers for years in order to obtain necessary treatment. Thus, for every dollar spent helping a victim to get better, 50 cents is spent making them worse!
Reforms to Ontario’s Dispute Resolution System Are Long Overdue
Full disclosure here. I worked with Justice Douglas Cunningham on his review of Ontario’s Dispute Resolution System (DRS) and fully support his recommendations. In the process of coming up with his recommendations, Justice Cunningham listened to a lot of users of the system, ADR experts and other interest parties. He spent considerable time analyzing what he heard before making his conclusions and recommendations. Obviously, not everyone is going to agree with all the recommendations.