Some Calif. MDs Quit Worker Comp System AP, New York Times
Nicole Mahrt, a spokeswoman for the American Insurance Association, said guidelines were needed to stop overtreatment and ineffective care that was helping drive up the cost of employers' workers' comp insurance.
"Change is hard; that doesn't mean it's wrong,'' Mahrt said. "It was certainly no one's intention to drive doctors out of the business. At the same time abuse was going on in the system and we needed to bring in new rules.''
Some medical services were overused, said Dr. Jeffrey Coe, a spine surgeon, but the "pendulum has swung too far'' toward too much review of treatments and that also has costs.
"Instead of providing care you're paying people to deny care,'' Coe said."