This is about how the Office of Workers' Compensation Programs (OWCP), Puget sound Naval Shipyard, and Group Health Cooperative Occupational Health Services have worked together to deny workers' compensations claims. The following is what I found during a review of my personal records obtained through the Privacy Act.
The Group Health Cooperative Occupational Health Services collaborated, without my knowledge, with OWCP and Puget Sound Naval Shipyard to deny a workers' compensation claim that proceeded my diagnosis of leukemia. This was a violation of law and my privacy.
Click here to
view a Occupational Health Clinic note dated 1-22-1993 where Group Heath Cooperative agreed with this decision
a couple of-weeks before I was diagnosed with
leukemia.
"Note to from Group
Health Cooperative Occupational Health Services to OWCP: This patient was seen on
consultation to protest the rejection of his claim. We could not disagree with
OWCPs findings."
This document was like a "rationalized medical opinion"
to support OWCP in the denial of my claim. I was not provided with a courtesy copy of this document that they sent to
OWCP. I received this copy via my FOIA request in a package postmarked March 10,
2004.
Click here to view a 1-26-1993 document from Group Heath Cooperative to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard that communicated the same.
Click here to see the NAVAL HOSP BRANCH CLINIC PSNS prescription for Afrin nasal spray to treat my chronic sinus infection caused by the fumes in my office.
The Group
Health Cooperative Occupational Health Services appears to me to be adversarial
towards workers to protect employers from employee workers' compensation claims.
In my opinion, this policy in unethical, increases the cost of health care
(about $300,000 in my case) and doesn't encourage workplace safety. Puget sound
Naval Shipyard would be a much safer and healthier place to work if they had to
pay for injuring their workers.
This is a quote from the Group
Health Cooperative Occupational Health Services web site:
"
Don't let work-related injury hurt your business"
In my opinion, Group Health Cooperative Occupational Health Services policies conflict with the following words of their CEO Scott Armstrong published in the Winter 2007 Issue of the Group Health Magazine:
A Broader View of Health Care Reform
As this election year gets under way, we'll be hearing a lot more about the presidential candidates' plans for health care reform
- most of it focused on ways to cut health care costs. Cutting costs is important, but at Group Health we know that effective reform doesn't stop there. The following are some changes that need to happen to successfully reform health care.
Shift the focus of health care from disease treatment to disease prevention. The current health care system treats its customers as victims of illness, rather than as powerful agents for health — an approach we think is backwards. In our opinion, we all need to be empowered to live healthy, active lives so we can reduce the risk of getting sick in the first place. We need to be active managers of our own health, practice healthy habits, and become positive role models for our families, friends, and co-workers. Group Health's Health Profile, secure e-mail with your physician, and online health records are just a few ways we're encouraging and supporting you to participate in your own health and health care.
About my leukemia claim
The incidence of chronic myeloid leukemia among Puget Sound
Naval Shipyard employees is 68.9 times
the national average. The increase of the incidence of chronic myeloid leukemia
among the Atomic
bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was 20-25 times normal, which is
approximately 1/3 of the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard rate.
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard employees also have extremely high incidences of mesothelioma, an asbestos-related cancer of the lining of the lung.
I welcome your comments and suggestions.
Bob Farmer
Email - robert.farmer@comcast.net
Homepage - http://oc.itgo.com
Last Updated on 02/23/08
