Red Flags Raised On Psych Claims
Wednesday, February 13th, 2002 Liability Workers' CompensationPsychological injury reports that support an insurance claim for severe mental trauma, based on quickie evaluations or analyses by people who lack the proper clinical credentials, should be looked on with suspicion, a psychiatric expert warns. These are among the "red flags" that claims personnel should be aware of in looking at psychological claims, according to Dr. David R. Price, director of the Forensic Psychiatry Program and the Forensic Psychiatry Research Center in Charleston, S.C., at Medical University of South Carolina. Underscoring the impact of such claims for insurers earlier this year during the ACE Annual Claims Exposition and Conference in Tampa, sponsored by Claims magazine, a publication of The National Underwriter Company, Dr. Price said that in the 1990s there had been a 200 percent increase in psychiatric disability claims.
