The Swamp Report: February 2011

23 February 2011

Progress report – through the looking glass

A blog post from Off the Couch by Kyle MacDonald

When I wrote the last “Off the Couch” I was optimistic. We had just received a very supportive and clear Independent review and it seemed unthinkable that ACC could do anything but simply follow the recommendations, and implement it’s suggestions.
I’m not stupid, but I now realise I have been very naive.
So what has changed? Nothing, really. Sorry to report, but other than the sixteen sessions, which was implemented prior to the review being released, nothing substantial has changed. The Sensitive Claims Unit now seems to be easier to deal with, people have been able to access sixteen sessions of “support”, we have some new forms, but when it comes to the issue of diagnosis, and the inappropriate interpretation and implementation of the legislation, nothing has changed. And to receive treatment beyond the sixteen sessions? Back to the “new pathway” I’m afraid.

Click here to read the rest of this post.

21 February 2011

Victim pursues ACC privacy file complaint

An article from the Whakatane Beacon by Samantha Motion

A sexual abuse victim says there is evidence her confidential file was opened and read when it was sent to a Matata dairy by ACC without her name on it last year.
ACC has accepted the package was incorrectly addressed to the Matata Superstore and has apologised for breaching the woman’s privacy, saying it was the result of human error in its mailroom.
The woman said as a result of the breach, her home was vandalised, she received phone calls, emails and visits from strangers and became afraid to leave her house.
She and her husband suffered irreparable damage and believed they could no longer live in Matata.
In a letter to the woman’s lawyer, ACC privacy officer Miriama Henderson acknowledged the woman and her husband experienced a “stressful time”.
After originally offering a $10,000 settlement, however, the corporation reneged.
Ms Henderson said it did not believe a financial settlement was “appropriate” on the basis that the harm caused to the woman had resulted from media reports about the incident and the woman’s “belief” that shop workers had read and disclosed information about her.
“ACC did not approach the media about [the woman’s] case and the evidence obtained in the investigation indicates that people working at the store did not disclose information.”
The woman was angry after initially learning of the privacy breach and contacted some national media organisations. The incident also featured in the Beacon.
Ms Henderson said the store owner had been spoken to during ACC’s investigation of the incident.
He admitted opening the package to find out who it was for, but was adamant no-one had read the contents or discussed it with members of the public.
Yesterday the woman said her lawyer had obtained letters from people who had been given details from the file, and excerpts from internet message boards where posters referred to the incident and the woman’s personal information.
She said one of the posts alleged the dairy owner talked to the poster’s mother about the contents of the file.
The woman is pursuing her complaint with the Privacy Commission.
Recently ACC’s Office of the Complaints Investigator found the corporation’s Sensitive Claims Unit had breached the woman’s rights 40 times.
They included unreasonable delays in processing and assessing her claims and failure observe her rights in line with the code of claimant’s rights.

15 February 2011

No review of ACC rejections - Smith

An article from the New Zealand Herald by Adam Bennett

* 1528 - The number of elective surgery cases going to review in the past financial year, up from 912 the year before.
* 65 per cent - ACC's success rate in review hearings, down from 70 per cent.

ACC Minister Nick Smith this morning ruled out holding an independent review of the corporation's procedures around elective surgery claims unless the corporation began to lose large numbers of appeals against its decisions.
Opposition MPs last week added their voices to calls for an independent review of the Accident Compensation Corporation's high rate of rejection for elective surgery claims following the Herald's series late last year highlighting dozens of cases where accident victims were denied such treatment.
Greens health and ACC spokesman Kevin Hague argued that while ACC's board had already initiated an internal review of the decision making process around elective surgery, it had taken a independent review last year of the corporation's treatment of "sensitive claims" by sexual abuse victims before that matter was properly dealt with.
But Dr Smith yesterday said he had a high level of confidence in ACC's procedures around elective surgery claims. "Every individual case where a person is dissatisfied with ACC the current legislation provides them with the capacity to be able to have that reviewed and if necessary taken to court.
"At the moment ACC is well and truly winning the majority of those cases. That indicates independent reviewers are finding ACC is making fair decisions about the eligibility for elective surgery and equally so when we go on to see decisions that got to the court. So I don't see any justification for an independent review."
Dr Smith said he had been keeping an eye on review decisions "and if I see ACC losing - the reviewers and the courts finding that ACC is unfairly making decisions about ACC's elective surgery entitlements - that would be the sort of trigger that I might consider for some sort of independent review".
Last year Auckland accident lawyer Philip Schmidt wrote twice to ministers and MPs asking for an independent investigation into what he said was a small group of doctors being used by the corporation to reject claims on grounds of pre-injury "degenerative" conditions.
He also called for a review of ACC owned Dispute Resolution Services which handles appeals against ACC's decisions.

11 February 2011

Review call into ACC's surgery rejections

An article from the New Zealand Herald by Adam Bennett

Pressure is building for an independent review of the ACC's handling of claims for elective surgery.
Late last year, the Herald highlighted the Accident Compensation Corporation's crackdown on access to surgery which saw claimants denied treatment, allegedly on flimsy opinions from advisers - usually doctors, some of whom were retired and often not specialists in the areas they advised on.
Auckland accident lawyer Philip Schmidt wrote to MPs and ministers twice last year seeking an inquiry into the ACC medical-adviser system.
Chief executive Jan White announced in December an internal review of ACC's elective surgery processes after the Herald ran a series of articles detailing a selection of the hundreds of complaints received.
Yesterday, however, after ACC chairman John Judge and Dr White defended the corporation's doubled rejection rate for elective surgery claims, the Labour Party and the Greens called for an independent review of the matter.
Greens ACC and health spokesman Kevin Hague said Dr White and Mr Judge were implying that surgeons were trying to get ACC to pick up the slack for a backlog of elective procedures in the public health service. "But what I thought ACC was really ducking was the whole business of in fact making it harder for New Zealanders to get that surgery."
Mr Hague said "catastrophic errors" in ACC's handling of sensitive claims from rape and sexual assault victims had only been exposed last year by an independent review. "What possible confidence can the public have that all of these other changes in procedures have not actually resulted in the same kinds of unjust and inequitable treatment of people with genuine injuries?
"What we really need to have is that same kind of independent review of what ACC has done in all of those areas."
Labour ACC spokesman Chris Hipkins said he was not satisfied ACC's internal review would deliver honest answers. "Having someone independent ... coming in and looking at it to see if it's fair, if it's best practice ... is really important."
Facing questions stemming from the Herald's series last year, Dr White yesterday told the transport and industrial relations committee the largest number of rejections for surgery claims were for "a procedure and operation that is very hard to get done in the public sector".
Surgeons had told ACC that sometimes when a patient who "really needs surgery" but who would not get priority in the public health sector, they would see if the patient had an injury "and then they could be under ACC".

TREND APPARENT
ACC's rejection rate for elective surgery claims:
* 11 per cent 2008
* 20 per cent 2010

10 February 2011

ACC digs a deeper hole

A post from frogblog by Kevin Hague

Financial Review of ACC today, so I subbed in for Gareth on the Transport and Industrial Relations Select Committee. Usual thing – we and Labour make the running and when things get too hot the Government members take a turn with patsy questions.
ACC fronted with Chair, John Judge, by videoconference and CEO Jan White fronting most questions, assisted by Denise Cosgrove, who seems to mostly front the reduction in ACC coverage we have seen.
I started by drawing attention to ACC’s claim that they have had to make the “hard decision” to “stick more closely to the legislation” on who gets covered. Were they, I asked, meaning that previously, when more New Zealanders had cover, they got that illegally?

Read the rest of this post here.

http://blog.greens.org.nz/2011/02/10/acc-digs-a-deeper-hole/