Keeping it confidential
IMAGINE if you attended a doctor’s appointment and when you arrived for your scheduled consultation you were met at the door of the clinic by a complete stranger or even someone from your work, like your boss.
They then tell you they will be attending the appointment with you, and they listen to your medical issues, interject while you and your doctor are working out your treatment plan and may even argue about what you and your doctor decide is an appropriate set of hours and duties that you can perform.
Of course, you would think this is outrageous.
And yet this is an experience that WorkCover clients increasingly and emotionally relate to me as something they experience when an insurer, employer or agent attends medical appointments with injured workers and their treating doctors.
A medical appointment with your treating doctor is sacrosanct. As an adult you can refuse access to anyone into that appointment. This includes your spouse, your parent or child.
That appointment is about your treatment and your recovery. It is between you and your doctor, and unless you consent otherwise it is only between you and your doctor.
In recent weeks I have met with several new clients who have arrived distressed and confused about their rights associated with their medical treatment.
One client turned up to a medical appointment they had booked with their general practitioner, only to be advised that a representative of their insurer was already in with their doctor.
They were never asked whether they consented to that person attending their appointment, they were simply there. They said they felt embarrassed, confused and felt powerless to do anything.
It is crucial that injured workers understand that they have control over their medical information and medical treatment appointments.
It is also essential that doctors obtain informed consent from the patient before proceeding with the appointment with the insurer, employer or their agent present. This is not a new phenomena. “The Fair Work Ombudsman is concerned about recent reports surrounding employers attempting to attend medical appointments with employees,” the Fair Work Ombudsman said in a statement issued on September 27, 2012.
“The Fair Work Ombudsman does not condone or support this behaviour and sees no reason why an employer should seek to attend a private and confidential appointment with an employee, unless specifically requested to do so by the employee.”
Media reported last year the case of Nyrie Stringer, a worker who had fallen from the back of a supermarket delivery truck in the course of her employment. Not only did her employer wrongly insist on her attending the company doctor for her treatment but she was “humiliated” when her male manager in his 60s sat in on an appointment.
Nyrie echoed what I regularly hear from clients when I ask why they didn’t speak up.
“I felt backed into a corner,” she said.
“And of course you just do it because you don’t want to lose your job, you don’t want to cause a fuss.”
The WorkCover legislation gives “the workers’ compensation authority ... employer or insurer/ claims agent” access to medical information about injured workers.
They can request medical reports and medical information from treating doctors in writing through the consent provided by the worker’s claim form.
In addition, the legislation requires injured workers to attend medical appointments arranged by their insurers with independent medical examiners so that insurers can obtain medical information in relation to the injured worker and ask the medical expert’s opinion about treatment, work capacity or duration of injury.
That makes it clear that there is simply no need for the insurer or employer or their representative or agent to attend a treatment appointment with an injured worker.
We are lucky to live in a state where the WorkCover system provides protections and safeguards regarding access to your choice of doctor for your treatment.
This increasing trend of the insurer, employer or their agent attending that appointment without the informed consent of the injured worker does not, in my 20 years of legal experience acting for injured workers, help the worker return to health or work faster.
Instead, it reduces the injured worker’s trust in the WorkCover system, their insurer or employer and often damages the confidence in a truly important relationship — the relationship of trust between an injured worker and their treating doctor. Rachel Schutze is a principal lawyer at Gordon Legal, wife and mother of three. [Ed’s note: Ms Schutze is married to Corio MP Richard Marles.]