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Helping Aetna get religion: Doctor panel gives insurer a chance for salvation

Thanks to the insurer's settlement of a class-action lawsuit, doctors now can speak their piece directly. Nothing may change soon, but it's an encouraging sign.

Editorial. Feb. 2, 2004.

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As any preacher knows, the target of evangelizing doesn't always respond the way you'd like. But at least you have a better shot than if that target never came to church.

So it's a positive step that on April 2, a committee of physicians and representatives of Aetna are scheduled to come together for the first of a regular series of face-to-face meetings -- at least two per year -- intended to bring the wayward company some religion.

The committee isn't expecting a miracle conversion, but it's willing to try. By filling in Aetna on the gospel of how physicians operate, the committee has a better chance than physicians ever had of effecting some sort of change on a company that many physicians feel has been ignorant of the Good Book -- the CPT manual, that is.

Aetna isn't totally a voluntary parishioner. The committee and these meetings are a result of the 97-page settlement, reached late last year, of a class-action lawsuit against Aetna over its cutting of physician claims, thereby interfering with recommended treatment to patients.

Still, the physician committee -- three members selected by the plaintiffs, three by the defense and three by the six doctors who had been selected by plaintiffs and defense -- is key to showing Aetna where it went wrong and fostering a better working relationship between physicians and the company.

Many physicians on the committee -- which meets with a group led by Aetna Medical Director William Popik, MD -- are involved with the AMA and their state medical societies, giving organized medicine a strong voice at the table.