Saturday, January 12, 2013
The psychological equivalent of kicking a hornet's nest....
I cannot remember if I posted this earlier, but even if I did, it bears a repeat. From Toni Bernhard's column:
Physical Illnesses May Soon Be Labeled “Mental Disorders”
Hoo, boy, it's difficult to adequately describe how angry this makes me. We already have a major scam run by private long-term disability insurance companies in which they suspend benefits by re-classifying physical ailments as mental ones (most don't cover mental illness long-term). This happened to me, and even though I hired one of the best lawyers in the business to recover my benefits, it did me no good whatsoever. I was out of luck.
I fear that we will end up with a situation where medical insurance companies will limit testing for physical ailments if a quick diagnosis is not forthcoming, concluding that the problem must be mental. Lazy MDs with "difficult" (as in persistent about finding out what's wrong) patients may shuffle them off to shrinks without a second thought. I'm not saying no person with a physical ailment ever needs a shrink, but they should also be able to get treatment for the underlying physical cause.
The worst-case scenario would be that people with life-threatening illnesses might never know it because they are stuck in cognitive behavioral therapy trying to figure out why they are sad that they don't feel well. My mother had lung cancer that spread to her brain; her doctor never bothered with proper testing but instead put her on anti-depressants. By the time a different doctor realized she had a serious physical illness, it was too late to save her life.
If this classification becomes a reality, I might as well check myself in to the psych ward immediately because I will meet their bogus criteria 100 percent.
Physical Illnesses May Soon Be Labeled “Mental Disorders”
Hoo, boy, it's difficult to adequately describe how angry this makes me. We already have a major scam run by private long-term disability insurance companies in which they suspend benefits by re-classifying physical ailments as mental ones (most don't cover mental illness long-term). This happened to me, and even though I hired one of the best lawyers in the business to recover my benefits, it did me no good whatsoever. I was out of luck.
I fear that we will end up with a situation where medical insurance companies will limit testing for physical ailments if a quick diagnosis is not forthcoming, concluding that the problem must be mental. Lazy MDs with "difficult" (as in persistent about finding out what's wrong) patients may shuffle them off to shrinks without a second thought. I'm not saying no person with a physical ailment ever needs a shrink, but they should also be able to get treatment for the underlying physical cause.
The worst-case scenario would be that people with life-threatening illnesses might never know it because they are stuck in cognitive behavioral therapy trying to figure out why they are sad that they don't feel well. My mother had lung cancer that spread to her brain; her doctor never bothered with proper testing but instead put her on anti-depressants. By the time a different doctor realized she had a serious physical illness, it was too late to save her life.
If this classification becomes a reality, I might as well check myself in to the psych ward immediately because I will meet their bogus criteria 100 percent.
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