Life insurance applications: Helping you to help your patients

Vol 53: july • juillet 2007  Canadian Family Physician•Le Médecin de famille canadien

1159

Current Practice

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Pratique courante

Practice Tips

Life insurance applications

Helping you to help your patients

Bruce Empringham

MD

L

ife and health insurers often require medical informa- tion and attending physicians’ statements in order to  underwrite  insurance  applications.  As  a  physician  who  has  been  in  private  practice  and  now  serves  as  Medical  Director  of  one  of  the  leading  life  and  health  insurance  providers  in  Canada,  I  understand  that  physicians’  time  is at a premium. Insurance is important to your patients’ 

financial well-being, however, so it is in their interest that  you complete these statements in a timely manner.

Insurers’ perspective

I  will  describe  an  insurer’s  perspective  on  the  informa- tion  we  require  from  physicians  and  explain  how  it  is  used  in  the  underwriting  process.  To  begin,  we  make  every  effort  to  protect  the  confidentiality  of  our  clients’ 

health  information.  Any  request  for  medical  informa- tion includes a signed patient consent form. The consent  form  also  permits  us  to  share  our  test  results  with  our  clients’ physicians.

It  is  our  practice  to  advise  clients’  physicians  of  any  important new abnormal test results we find during our  underwriting process. We hope this will help physicians  in the care of their patients.

Physicians’ responsibilities

As do most life and health insurers in Canada, we use a  professional third party service provider to collect under- writing  information,  and  we  pay  physicians  a  reason- able fee for the information. Physicians can choose how  they provide the information: through in-office dictation,  over the telephone, by filling out a form, or by sending a  copy of the patient’s chart. The service provider can give  physicians  any  further  information  they  require  about  the process.

From  our  point  of  view,  the  most  effective  way  an  attending  physician  can  prepare  a  statement  is  to  list  the  client’s  problems  and  provide  supporting  copies  of 

relevant test results. In most cases, it is not necessary to  document office visits.

If we need more information, we will follow up with  you. Unless we ask you to do so, we do not require that  you  see  your  patients  in  order  to  complete  the  state- ment.  If,  for  professional  reasons,  you  think  you  need  to  see  your  patients,  you  should  discuss  this  with  the  person asking for the report so that any delays can be  considered.

Time factor

It’s  important  that  physicians  provide  their  statements  in a timely manner. They might be aware of the recent  legal  precedent  in  Canada  of  a  physician  being  held  responsible  for  the  value  of  life  insurance  lost  due  to  a  delay  on  the  part  of  that  physician  in  providing  the  required statement.

We  ask  physicians  to  provide  patient  information,  including medical history and test results, and we do the  rest. We use physicians’ statements, together with other  test  results  and  reports  that  we  might  order,  for  under- writing purposes. 

Physicians  play  an  important  role  in  the  insurance  application  process.  I  hope  this  information  will  help  save  you  time  and  expedite  the  insurance  application  process for your patients. 

Dr Empringham is Vice-President and Medical Director of the Great-West Life Assurance Company, London Life Insurance Company, and the Canada Life Assurance Company.

We encourage readers to share some of their practice experience: the neat little tricks that solve difficult clinical situations. Practice Tips can be submitted on-line at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cfp or through the CFP website www.cfp.ca under “for authors.”

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FOR PRESCRIBING INFORMATION SEE PAGE 1227

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