Physical Therapists Opposed to OrthoNet Business Practices

It makes no logical sense to take the decisions for patient care out of the hands of the physicians and therapists that treat a patient and put it in the hands of middle men who have absolutely no contact with a patient. That results in too little care to affect the results that are necessary for a patient's recovery and often to interruptions in care that end up driving the total cost of treating the patient's issues correctly. These types of corporations that step in to ration care do nothing but hurt patients. This relationship between Anthem and OrthoNet should not be allowed.

Individuals deserve the right to the care that they are already paying for.

Please please consider the patient

I oppose OrthoNet's involvement with Physical Therapy.

As a private practice owner and practicing physical therapist, I am completely against orthonet superseding my professional opinion regarding frequency and duration of a patient's treatment plan. I have always balanced my plan of care based on an individual patient's objective findings collected at initial evaluation and continued or discontinued physical therapy intervention based on the patient's progress or lack thereof. I certainly take offense to an intermediary entity dictating to me how often I may see a patient. This intermediary is not sitting in the exam room while I assess a patient's subjective reports and objective findings to establish an appropriate plan of care based on said findings. Each and every patient is an individual with a particular presentation in terms of past medical history, mechanism of injury, specific physical therapy diagnosis, individual level of severity and irritability and so on. Orthonet is essentially seeking to arbitrarily establish frequency and duration based on a particular diagnosis with no regard or consideration for an individual's specific and unique presentation. This "cookie cutter" approach disregards my autonomy as a licensed physical therapy therapist and ignores my practice act. Further more, there is a conflict of interest here that is illegal. Certainly more investigation into this conflict of interest is required specific to my physical therapy practice act as well as the potential legal ramifications of the discriminatory nature of this arrangement. Not only is this arrangement discriminatory to autonomous practicing physical therapists, but it is discriminatory to patients who are paying more and more money for a particular insurance plan while receiving less and less service (and losing their freedom of choice in terms of seeking care from qualified private practice physical therapy providers) for their inflated premiums.

Insurers should not be in a position of being the ultimate decision maker as to what is medically necessary. There should be a procedure under which either side may seek a prompt review from a qualified neutral third party.

We must Stop orthonet

People's rights and what they pay for are under attack again in the "lets keep more money" for ourselves in the new insurance scheme from Blue Cross. Orthonet is another means to put money ahead of patients, all my Blue Cross patients didn't know this was happening and are furious that they pay for PPO plans with the option of receiving PT at their MD and PT advisement not from a person that looks at a piece of paper and doesn't know the whole person and or their individual needs. Paper pushing PT instead of hands-on healing.

10 years ago Featured

Orthonet has proven with our Colleagues in other states that their plan is to restrict physical therapy treatment to Anthem subscribers. This is without regard to forcing the patient into more costly and dangerous treatments such as epidurals and surgery.

Say NO to third party administrators! They deny patient care and add costs to running our practices!

Am against unskilled reviewers denying appropriate treatment for patients. I pay for health care and should be able to use it when needed.

My physical therapy is part of my overall health and well being, the medical coverage for which I have paid my entire working life. I believe any decisions for my care should be made by those who examine and treat me, and NOT by some detached board members who have never examined me or know my health needs.

Keep the decision making in the hands of the professionals that best understand the patients needs!

Please do not pass this bill as a third party company that has never seen or examined me should have no say in my care.

It is a very poor idea to implement OrthoNet authorizations for all Blue Cross plans as the current plans that use OrthoNet and inefficient.

I opposed to Orthonet Business Prectices

I understand that you are close to making a decision to approve or deny the anthem OrthoNet relationship. I want to voice my opposition as a physical therapist. OrthoNet will subject patients to delays in getting care and ration care by potentially denying care that the physical therapist and physician recommend. This relationship will make it more difficult for therapists to provide care to our patients without delays and create an extra layer of unnecessary paperwork for the provider. While this is cumbersome to the provider, it is ultimately not good for patients. Please oppose this relationship. Thank you!

No on OrthoNet

10 years ago Featured

According to research presented by Harvard Business Review recently, it is more efficient and cost-effective for licensed physical therapists to treat low back pain than prescribing medicines and expensive technological evaluations for most patients in the study.

No for OrthoNet