https://old.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/1igp35p/follow_up... ("Follow up: The doctor who was pulled out of surgery to call UHC because they were denying her patient’s stay got a threatening letter from UHC for talking about it on social media", 181 comments)
I know people will default to believing the physician and not the lawyers, but from my read of the letter it appears UHC’s lawyers have valid points (don’t shoot me, I’m just the messenger)
Specifically, UHC appears to have recordings of the calls and the paperwork which contradict the claims in the social media post.
The two biggest problems I see from my quick read:
1. UHC’s rep said the issue was non urgent and asked for a call back “when convenient to you”. This differs from the social media post claiming that UHC called and demanded she “scrub out of surgery” and “call right now”.
2. UHC has records of the doctor conceding that her office’s submission for inpatient care was erroneous and that they actually meant to request observation care. That’s why UHC was calling.
The fact that UHC came with receipts (recordings of the phone calls) and that the doctor even conceded the error during the call does not put the doctor in a good position. The original claim that the insurance rep demanded she scrub out of surgery immediately was a red flag that something was amiss with the story.
So I’d take it with a pinch of salt but the lawyers might be absolutely correct as well. I’m just saying I can see it as a tactic but maybe I’m a bit paranoid. Wondering if just I jumped to this conclusion?
In states where recording requires consent you will get a pre-recorded message at the beginning of the call warning you that it's being recorded.
Based on my experience with some hospitals, it's possible that something like this happened:
UHC [on phone]: We'd like to speak to Dr. X when possible
Reception [on phone]: Sure, s/he's available
Reception [to doctor]: Stop the surgery! United Healthcare needs to speak to you immediately!
Dr. X [frantically undressing]: I can't believe these vampires are so demanding!
Disclaimer: I contract for hospitals. I usually have good experiences working with management, doctors, nurses, and technologists. Practically all of the bad experiences are with reception and security (a few places are good at it, but not most). I've never seen people more devoted to making sure things don't get done. I am always happy to give them my ID, my company ID, use the metal detector, search the bag — I don't care. But they always, inexplicably, insist on calling someone in the department, who is usually busy, who doesn't need to actually do anything, and nonetheless, we must slow everything down and bother them. I don't know who writes these policies, but I could see this happening.
The surgeon went to social media blaming UHC for everything, with the assumption that her own staff couldn't have been part of the miscommunication or paperwork errors.
UHC comes back, with receipts, showing that the error is somewhere on the hospital side.
There's a large gulf between being wrong and being libelous.
But what do lawyers know?
But if you really want to talk about other jurisdictions, there's plenty of opportunities for censorious fuckery. Just off the top of my head (and limited to capital-W Western[0] countries):
- English defamation law is notorious for having a low bar for legal action.
- Japanese defamation law only exempts true statements that are in the "public interest".
[0] Having a liberal constitution and rule of law
This is the truth. People do not understand the depths of hell you are in when you are dealing with hospital admins.