When individual patients are sacrificed for the greater "system", we get decisions like paying for opioids instead of cold therapy machines despite the facts that Lauren Kafka presented to her insurance company:
"...Then I contacted the people at Game Ready, who cited five studies that show benefits for knee- and hip-surgery patients provided by this system compared with passive ice therapy. These benefits include reduced consumption of narcotics; improvement of measurable physical therapy milestones; reduced pain and swelling; increased postoperative function; and improved patient satisfaction with the recovery process."
Read the rest of Lauren's story below...
http://kazu.org/post/insurance-company-paid-opioids-not-cold-therapy#stream/0