Denials of health-insurance claims are rising, and getting weirder.
We need Medicare for All.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/05/17/health-insurance-denial-claims-reasons/
Well, are the denials valid?
Just because there are more denials doesn't mean there aren't just more people asking for things they shouldn't be asking for.
The important metrics aren't denial rate but rather those that focus on what health insurance actually *does*. Heck, they'd do better looking at approvals per capita than denials like this.
The headline comes across as bad stats to get clickbait headlines.
@volkris The point is that there are more denials for insurance companies to increase their profits. That is a big part of their business model.
Why does that matter?
We want insurance companies to first and foremost abide by their legal responsibilities, and that figure has nothing to do with whether insurance is functioning as it is supposed to function.
Whether my claim is approved or denied correctly or incorrectly has absolutely nothing to do with the rate at which the company is denying other claims.
It's a distraction from the issues that actually matter.
@volkris It mattes when people are frequently being harmed because needed medical care is denied or delayed, or when people are hurt financially by having to pay out of pocket for medical care which their insurance company had to pay for.
You're missing what I'm saying.
I'm saying we need to be focusing on how frequently people are being denied that care, but this statistic doesn't say that, and so it's a distraction from exactly that thing that we should be caring about.
Like I said, I want to know how often insurance companies are improperly denying claims, but this statistic doesn't address that.
Weird way to draw attention to the point by not addressing the point! Again, this is why I'm criticizing it as a distraction.
If the paper wanted to draw attention to how often people were being failed by insurance, then it should have talked about how often people were failed by insurance.
But it didn't. It went off on this irrelevant statistic.
That makes me think this is a newspaper article trying to get clicks by using a sensationalized stat that will get people excited.
Sadly, that doesn't help draw attention to how insurance companies are or aren't failing.
@volkris It is not intended to be a scholarly study or the definitive work on the subject. It is a newspaper article of interest to Med-mastodon as it refers to an issue we encounter on a regular basis.
@volkris You are missing the point. This is a newspaper article drawing attention to the problem. It is not intended to be a statistical analysis of exactly how often it occurs.