Does Discrimination and the Disenfranchisement of Women in the Health Care System Impact an ERISA Disability Insurance Claim?

A recent study, “Women’s Experiences of Health-Related Communicative Disenfranchisement,”  published in Health Communication, confirms that many women’s  health concerns are often dismissed by physicians.

According to the study, many women’s health concerns are met with disbelief that “discredits, silences and/or stereotypes one’s… experiences.” This is “medical gaslighting.” By “gaslighting,” I mean the tendency to treat someone’s complaints as if they were unimportant or just imaginary. It is a way of dismissing someone’s concerns as if they weren’t real.

This dismissal, disbelief and being written off as just anxious or depressed, is all too common in my experience with women who have reproductive problems, migraines, Postural Orthostatic Hypertension (POTS), fibromyalgia and immune system disorders.

Does Discrimination and Disenfranchisement of Women in the Health Care System Impact an ERISA Disability Insurance Claim?

Yes! As  a woman and as a lawyer who has practiced ERISA disability law for many years, I have seen many disability claims denied and even terminated because the treating physician has not taken my client’s complaints seriously, has failed to perform necessary testing, and has not been supportive of the client’s disability claim.

I can tell just from reading the client’s medical records whether the physician is “gaslighting” my client. If that is the case, I recommend a change of provider, to one who has a reputation for listening to patients, is an expert in the medical issue, and is willing to support the patient, notwithstanding the difficulty in making a diagnosis.

But the medical gaslighting doesn’t stop with treating providers.

Medical Gaslighting By ERISA Disability Peer Review Providers

Disability insurance companies have a disability applicant’s medical records reviewed by their internal medical staff and outside peer review medical providers. That is a given at any stage of a disability insurance claim.

Unfortunately, in my experience, the outside peer review medical providers are paid to create a medical reason to deny or terminate benefits. Medical gaslighting is all too commonly seen as peer review providers regularly

1. dismiss complaints of pain and dysfunction as being out of proportion to findings on physical examination,
2. accept and amplify the treating physician’s dismissal of the symptoms and and the impact those symptoms have on functionality, and
3. label the complaints as psychiatric in nature to limit the payment of benefits to just two years based on the mental nervous policy limitations commonly seen in disability policies or plans.

The medical gaslighting gives disability carriers a reason to deny a claim.

There is a cadre of peer review providers who, by medical specialty, are known “gaslighters.” They don’t believe in fibromyalgia, Lyme disease, ME/CFS and other diseases, and will use the skepticism of the disability policyholder’s own medical providers against them, or else apply their own disbelief to the analysis of the medical records.

What Should You Do if You are Being Medically Gaslighted by Your ERISA Disability Carrier?

Nancy Cavey understands the difficulty many women experience in getting doctors and disability insurance carriers to take their symptoms and their disabilities seriously. She also understands that disability insurance carriers often either misunderstand or else know nothing whatsoever about complaints that are either experienced by women more frequently than they are experienced by men, or else are experienced only by women. Please call our office at 727-477-3263 for a free consultation and a chance to get the disability benefits you deserve.