After the release of its much-awaited update on physician dispensing in workers comp, WCRI found itself under verbal assault from physician dispensing company Automated Healthcare Solutions.
AHCS, perhaps the largest firm in the business (and partially owned by Boston-based ABRY Partners, who also owns Gould and Lamb and York Claims), said this about the study and WCRI in an email to WorkCompCentral’s Mike Whitely:
“It is not surprising that this unscholarly work is the vehicle being used to deliver a self-serving message the insurance industry wants the public to hear…Despite repeated requests, WCRI has refused to make available its underlying data for prior reports, which leads us to believe that this questionable work has not been properly peer-reviewed and has not been validated by an independent third party.”
Talk about cranky…
First, this statement is from the same AHCS that has repeatedly quoted WCRI in its written statements supporting physician dispensing of repackaged drugs. Including at the last Illinois fee schedule meeting, where AHCS employee Gary Kelman MD quoted extensively from WCRI’s previous work in an attempt to justify the higher costs and utilization patterns exhibited by physician dispensers. Their advocates have also used WCRI’s reports and statements in Hawai’i, where they succeeded in delaying controls over costs for physician-dispensed repackaged drugs
Second, WCRI has a well-deserved and long-held reputation for unbiased, high-quality and well-done research. If anything, critics (including me at times) have lamented the time it takes WCRI to produce reports. Aggregating data from different companies, ensuring data quality, reviewing findings, and QA’ing every analysis, calculation, result, and formula before you even get to writing up results takes a lot of time and talent, and that’s before you get to writing up the results and fact-checking each and every statement, figure, statistic, finding, and conclusion.
Third, WCRI is funded by a variety of sources, which AHCS could have checked easily if they wanted to – insurers, state regulators, labor organizations, employers, and others. Or perhaps they did and didn’t want to mention the broad funding and support base enjoyed by WCRI.
Let’s also not forget WCRI doesn’t take stands or suggest policy – they never have. That’s not their function, and it is one they take very seriously.
For AHCS to impugn WCRI is a classic case of shoot the messenger. Fact is physician dispensing drives up costs, enriches a very few physicians, dispensing companies, and private equity firms (ABRY in particular), and risks patient safety while increasing disability duration, hurting employers, and increasing taxpayers’ burden.
Jul
20
