‘FAIR – supporting auto accident victims through advocacy and
education’
FAIR Association of Victims for Accident Insurance
Reform
579A Lakeshore Rd. East, PO Box 39522
Mississauga, ON, L5G 4S6
March 31, 2015
Sent
by email
College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario
80 College St., Toronto, ON, M5G 2E2
RE: Transparency Project Phase 2
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the CPSO’s
proposed Transparency by-law changes. FAIR speaks for many of Ontario’s motor
vehicle accident (MVA) victims who are especially vulnerable to medical abuse. Unlike
ordinary citizens, Ontario’s accident victims are examined an alarming number
of times by third party for-hire medical opinion vendors as well as their own
treating physicians.
FAIR posts links to many Health Professions Appeal and Review
Board (HPARB) decisions and Financial Services Commission of Ontario (FSCO)
arbitration decisions about Ontario’s ‘independent’ medical opinion providers
on our website. It is clear that MVA victims are often re-victimized by Ontario
physicians whose bias favours the insurance company on whom they depend to make
a very handsome pay check. The anonymity of the physicians within these
decisions has caused yet another layer of harm by way of failing to protect the
public and in the bargain harming the reputation of all good physicians.
Greater transparency would go a long way toward instilling
confidence that CPSO really is providing oversight and enforcement of the
regulations and not just going about the business of protecting an elite group
of doctors whose volume of questionable work product saves Ontario’s insurers
millions of dollars every year. This creates medical havoc for treating
physicians who must deal with the fallout of the abuse to their patients and the
roadblocks to treatment that these poor quality reports generate.
Regarding
Cautions-in-person and SCERPs
CPSO has a long history of ignoring complaints. There is a
concern that those who have abused Ontario’s MVA victims in the past and who
have a history of prior complaints will be starting out fresh as if their record
of complaints never existed and doesn't matter.
CPSO has often cloaked multiple offenders in secrecy and
protected the physician’s interests over that of very vulnerable patients. Some years ago a College investigator recorded
that a well-known Insurer Medical Examination (IME) provider said that “in his
view, there are three types of patients:
1.
Patients
with nothing wrong with them who are “pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes”
2.
Patients
with no problem who think they have a problem. These patients actually believe
that there is something wrong with them, even though there is not.
3.
Patients
with minor problem who have exaggerated this problem into something much bigger
than it is.”
Ultimately the physician who had revealed his bias and
potential to stand in the way of treatments for Ontario’s MVA victims was only
sent for a private and confidential oral caution. CPSO, at that time, was investigating
multiple complaints about the bias and poor quality medical reports this vendor
of medical opinions was churning out by the thousands. That same IME physician went
on to provide flawed medical reports for many years for many thousands of auto
accident victims in more than one Canadian province as well as Ontario’s WSIB
claimants. Not once did CPSO do anything to protect the public and the
physician assessor was ultimately celebrated by his peers for his contributions
to the assessment industry.
This type of secrecy costs the treating physicians who are
actually trying to assist their patients’ recovery and the honest medical
assessors who are doing a good job. The cost to the victims of the medical
abuse is evident in the almost 100,000 cases of unpaid MVA claims in our courts
right now. Many of those people eventually end up on our public supports
because their claims were derailed on the basis of some bogus and biased expert
medical report. When Ontario’s wealthy insurers use the medical profession to
bolster their denials, it costs us all.
There is a concern that going forward many of the third
party physician assessors will fight the exposure of a more open policy and because
of their greater wealth will be able to mount even more appeals from College
censures. We hope that Ontario’s treating physicians whose patients are harmed
will be taking a more active role in protecting their patients from medical
predatory practices and that the College will now be listening to those members
as well.
CPSO should reach back into their past records of the
thousands of complaints made by auto accident victims. Those CPSO members that
have had multiple complaints and secret cautions in the past decade should have
them posted on the public register. It is not at all unusual for a MVA victim
to have to wait 10 years or more to have their case heard in a court where the
biased or unqualified report will be thrown out by a judge at a hearing. Those
people wouldn't be there if not for these shoddy and biased reports and the
College should make every effort to protect the public as well as undo the harm
that they've caused with what has been an empty promise of regulation and oversight.
Regarding Criminal
Charges
We agree with the proposed amendment. We also agree with the
submission from the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario that, in addition
to including convictions and charges under the Criminal Code and Health
Insurance Act, the CPSO should include charges for offences under PHIPA on the
public register going forward.
Regarding Licences in
other jurisdictions and Discipline findings in other jurisdictions
We agree that this information should be posted on the CPSO
public register. Unfortunately many of those physicians who work for Ontario’s
insurers also export their bias and shoddy work outside of Ontario.
FAIR appreciates the open nature of this consultation
process and that progress is and will continue to be made to protect the public.
Board Chair, Fair Association of Victims for Accident Insurance Reform
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