Reports on the decision of the Psychological Association, a group
of psychologists in the United States to join the American Federation of
Teachers to lobby against managed care. Implications of managed care on
income and autonomy of psychologists; Actions taken by psychologist and
lawyer Bryant Welch; Legislation on the liability of insurance companies
for harm done when they deny appropriate psychiatric care.
By
Jamie Talan, published on January 01, 2000
HMO REPORT
Psychologists are getting creative in their battle against managed
care.
Unhappy that HMOs have cut into their income and autonomy,
psychologists have affiliated with a union for the first time ever. In
October. the New York State Psychological Association agreed to join the
American Federation of Teachers. an organization with over 140,000
members, in hopes of utilizing their tremendous lobbying clout.
Others are taking on managed care companies individually.
Psychologist and lawyer Bryant Welch, Ph.D.. is pioneering a legal
fight against the federal laws that protect managed care companies. He
argues that private managed care companies have a strong financial
incentive to deny care to patients, which ultimately costs too many
patients their lives.
The first two of Welch's 27 cases went to, court over the last few
months--with encouraging results. One case involved Kansas teen-ager
Blake Hanson, who became depressed when his mother was diagnosed with a
life-threatening medical disorder in 1995. Though he repeatedly begged
doctors to send him to a mental institution, the state-run system
diverted his care to outpatient clinics after only a few days of
hospitalization. Still very sick, Hanson finally bought a gun and killed
himself in the bathtub.
Hanson's family felt that the health care managers were directly
responsible for their son's death. The jury on Hanson's case agreed,
awarding the family $600,000 for "grief." While in Kansas, the most one
can get for such a claim is $100,000, Welch says it's "a
beginning."
Welch has been active on this issue since 1986 when, as executive
director for professional practice at the American Psychological
Association. he lobbied Congress to legislate laws that would hold
insurance companies liable for harm done when appropriate psychiatric
care was denied.
Before the law was finally amended in 1995, it was impossible to
get beyond the 1974 federal statute that protected insurance companies
from lawsuits over medical care decisions. "Now at least we've opened
that door," Welch says. "We've won the right to sue."
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