Medical care’s state of denial

San Francisco Chronicle, June 23, 2008

Each year, thousands of Californians find themselves at odds with their health insurers over whether they should get the treatment their doctors prescribed. Health insurers "are going back to the old strategies of the '90s, when they interrupted care on the front end by denying or delaying treatment offered by a doctor," said Jerry Flanagan, health advocate for Consumer Watchdog. But now patients have a number of resources to turn to if they believe they received an unfair denial.