As one might expect, the large auto insurance companies used every obstructive and deceptive tactic in the book to oppose this law — spending upwards of $80 million fighting it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ralph-nader/california-prop-103_b_4282587.html
Fixing Ontario’s auto insurance dispute resolution system will require more than mere tinkering.
Court records indicate that State Farm, The Dominion and Co-operators alleged, among other things, that treatment plans, assessment requests and invoices that were submitted were “purported to have been signed by doctors who never worked at a corporate defendant and/or who never recommended the assistive devices allegedly recommended.”
“To a certain extent, the system has been a victim of its own success,” Cunningham writes in the report, noting that easy access, as well as increased use of legal representatives, has created a parallel system to the courts that is only “marginally faster.” http://www.canadianunderwriter.ca/news/more-feedback-requested-on-ontario-auto-insurance-dispute-resolution-system-recommendations/1002723504/
Ontario’s dispute resolution system has inflexible rules and a structure that leads to unfair treatment of accident victims, says a victims’ group.
Make mediation optional – FAIR Thompson’s Daily Insurance News Service November 12, 2013
The OTLA says accident victims with serious injuries often go without adequate or timely treatment due to incomplete or biased medical assessments.
Biased MDs should be penalized – Lawyers Thompson’s Daily Insurance News Service November 12, 2013
Survivors of car crashes look at the medical profession in a whole different way after finding out it is a free for all abuse system that the college is ignoring.
The Ontario Legislature last week passed a motion calling on the government to establish regulations limiting the fees charged for medical records, which, politicians suggest, are often requested by lawyers in auto insurance lawsuits.
This lack of transparency about complaints is putting even more vulnerable accident victims at risk because they cannot protect themselves when the IME vendor is perpetually ‘cleansed’ by the lack of information available. The College has facilitated unacceptable behaviour by way of keeping secrets from the public – consistently telling the public that there are no disciplinary actions taken against a physician by conveniently classifying the College actions as remedial and confidential.
FAIR response to CPSO Draft Transparency Principles November 11 13
OTLA feels that the overriding concern in establishing and applying these Transparency Principles must, first and foremost, be the protection of the public and disclosure of information, not the protection of the physician’s privacy.
OTLA-Submission-CPSO-Transparency-Principles-Nov-8-2013
http://policyconsult.cpso.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Transparency-Principles.pdf