ACC Elective Surgery Review Report May 2011

Acclaim Otago welcomes today’s release of ACC’s Review of Elective Surgery report.

Denise Powell, President of Acclaim Otago states “At last ACC is acknowledging the need for a fair, transparent, and timely claims approval process for elective surgery. ACC have undertaken an extensive review and we hope they will be immediately addressing the issues that increasing numbers of doctors, patients and advocacy groups had been highlighting to them.

The unacceptable delays in decisions have had a hugely negative impact on the lives and of accident victims. Increasingly, we became aware of more and more injured people being forced into time consuming and often costly and unnecessary reviews and appeals. To see that 44% of surgical declines were subsequently overturned at review simply confirms that what we have been saying about the elective surgery claims process and further, that our concerns were indeed justified.

Acclaim Otago looks forward to ACC implementing the recommended actions from today’s report and seeing robust and correct decisions made first time, in a timely manner.

ENDS

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