Aimed Alliance, in New Journal Article, Calls on Trial Attorneys to Help Patients When Health Insurers Violate Consumer Protection Laws

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Weekly News -- The Alliance for the Adoption of Innovations in Medicine (Aimed Alliance) - a non-profit organization working to expand patient access to effective treatments and technologies - said trial attorneys should help consumers challenge unethical, inefficient, and, in some cases, illegal insurance practices that require high out-of-pocket payments, delay access to treatments, and interfere with the relationship between the patients and their health care practitioners.

This call to action is the subject of Aimed Alliance's scholarly article entitled, "Now or Never: The Urgent Need for Action Against Unfair Coverage Denials for Quality Health Care," to be published in June in the upcoming edition of the Loyola University Chicago Law Journal. Aimed Alliance's Executive Director, Stacey L. Worthy, will speak on this topic at "Voices of Value: Spotlight on Rare Cancers, Orphan Drugs and Why Patients Need AIR," hosted by Patients Rising on Sunday, June 4, 2017, concurrent with the global cancer conference meeting in Chicago.

"Individuals who are denied access to treatment may have legal remedies available to them," said Ms. Worthy. "That's why we're calling on trial attorneys to get involved - to take initiative by offering a public-good in fighting insurers who have broken laws, and in assisting patients to get the coverage they deserve."

The paper cites insurance practices, such as step therapy policies that require patients to fail on cheaper treatments, sometimes with harmful side effects, before patients can access the treatment that was prescribed. The paper notes, "In reality, step therapy policies can be cruel and unethical" and highlights laws that may protect patients from such policies. For example, if step therapy prevents a health care practitioner from prescribing the treatment he or she believes is best for a particular patient, the practitioner could sue for interference with the physician-patient relationship. And if the insurer fails to disclose its step therapy policy to enrollees in its plan, then that could be considered deceptive and misleading in violation of the state's unfair trade practice act.

Keywords for this news article include: Therapy, Legal Issues, Aimed Alliance, Finance and Investment.

Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world. Copyright 2017, NewsRx LLC