4 ms·

Depressed woman loses benefits over Facebook photos

18 points by kirubakaran 17y ago

tokenadult 17y ago
This is private disability insurance in a province of Canada? How does that interact with Canada's system of medical insurance?
- imack 17y ago
  There are still private insurance companies that will cover things not normally covered by the provincial plans. Drugs would be another good example of something not universally covered (depending on drug). Drugs are, however, price controlled in many cases. My sister has asthma, and has to pay a lot for inhalers; thus, working somewhere with health coverage is still a big concern for her. Quebec always tends to do things a little differently, but I'm surprised at this because in general they cover more things publicly, not less. I'm betting that the province would only cover "long term" disability.
- pyre 17y ago
  You should really read up on how the various systems of government medical systems work. In the UK, the government owns the hospitals, so some things are free and somethings require payment (which you can get medical insurance for). In Germany, it's a government-owned insurance company and the hospitals are still privately or publicly owned. In Canada, the health system is not tied to the Federal government as much as each Provence has their own health plan/system. (i.e. Ontario has OHIP, the Ontario Health Insurance Plan). You can get insurance from your employer (or privately) that basically covers whatever the government plan doesn't (including some medications, etc that aren't normally covered).
anigbrowl 17y ago
The most interesting part: She also doesn’t understand how Manulife accessed her photos because her Facebook profile is locked and only people she approves can look at what she posts. Assuming this is not a case of user error, I too wonder about that. The insurance issue is interesting too, but the 'depression = disability?' question is rather too broad for HN.
- sounddust 17y ago
  Because the default privacy setting for photo albums is "visible to everyone", and most people don't realize that it's independent from profile privacy. It's one of the many flaws of facebook's privacy (at least for an ordinary user who isn't web-savvy). Also - even if she totally locked down her profile, the photos of her could have been uploaded by friends with more lenient privacy settings.
tptacek 17y ago
You can get paid sick leave for "depression" in Canada? (You can't easily claim worker's comp for mental illness in the US without it being concomitant to a physical injury; I'm not making a statement about the seriousness of depression.)
- anonjon 17y ago
  "depression" is serious. I would down vote you if I could.
  - req2 17y ago
    Drug addiction is serious. Can you get paid sick leave for drug addiction?
    - pyre 17y ago
      Possibly. I'll assume that you're really wondering this and not just being sarcastic. If you are being sarcastic, then why don't you look up whether or not drug addiction is a disability under a Canadian insurer instead of making a comment that doesn't add too much to the discussion?
      - tptacek 17y ago
        The answer to that question in the US appears to be "no". Canadian EI sickness benefits are paid, at least in some cases, to workers who are residents at inpatient clinics for addiction. ... but not, apparently, by Worker's Comp in Manitoba. Nor is mental illness in general, unless concomitant to a physical trauma.
  - padmanabhan01 17y ago
    If it is serious, why aren't those benefits available in US?
    - antipaganda 17y ago
      Prejudice.
callmeed 17y ago
I'll be totally honest–I'm having a really hard time generating a fair opinion on this matter. I'm not going to pretend to know how depression works, how often it strikes patients, or how much it disables a person. If you truly can't work, I get it. OTOH, if you can go on vacation, it would seem to me that you could perhaps work part-time, try to attend vocational rehab, or something. I know it's not popular to side with big insurance companies, but I can't blame them for at least investigating claims like this.
- enjo 17y ago
  My father is a V.A. Dentist. He routinely sees veterans who are collecting big benefit checks and receiving full medical (plus travel compensation) for PTSD. The the thing is, they never get "better". They live on the tax-payees dime perpetually. Most have never seen combat. This is a lot like that.
  - pyre 17y ago
    > Most have never seen combat. That's anecdotal at best.
  - antipaganda 17y ago
    There's no widely-accepted cure for PTSD yet. Sometimes people get better on their own, but we really don't know why.
- nfnaaron 17y ago
  Obviously none of us knows how the woman's therapist or other professional counseled her. But I can imagine a mental health professional telling someone "you should try to get out. Don't lock yourself at home. Go out with friends. Go to the beach. Just don't sit at home in the dark and stew." So, you go out. You smile. You make progress. It's not "I'm cured," it's "this is one thing I'm doing to help myself." For the insurance company to deny coverage based on that, is about the same as denying coverage for anti-depressants because you're taking anti-depressants. Of course we can assume that they're just looking for a reason, any reason, to deny coverage. The worker who did this probably gets better performance reviews for more denials. The closest to reasonable that this could have ever come, is for the insurance company to request consultation with her and her doctor. What actually happened is a non-qualified functionary made a potentially life-threatening decision. Probably just before lunch.
lmkg 17y ago
I have trouble believing that even a professional, experienced psychiatrist or therapist can diagnose being cured from clinical depression based on a handful of facebook photos. I also have trouble believing that the decision at the insurance company was made with any involvement whatsoever from professional psychiatrists, much less her therapist in particular. Dropping coverage is potentially dangerous, if they're on medication. Altering (or stopping) anti-depressent dosages requires professional oversight. And if you're getting worker's comp, I certainly hope you're on medications.
GiraffeNecktie 17y ago
What people don't seem to understand about insurance is that they are entirely motivated by profit. They're not your mom and dad. They're not going to feel obligated just because you've been contributing to their plan for twenty years. If you have car accident, for example, they're ok with you being laid up for a few weeks but after a certain point you become a problem, a very serious problem and they'll do whatever it takes to get you back to work. Or off their books. Either way it doesn't matter. The longer you drain their funds, the more intensely they'll scrutinize your life, looking for some justification to ditch you. If you're on sick leave due to depression it's just dumb to post party pictures on the Internet.
asher 17y ago
I think this is the tip of a large iceberg, and we may see more of the iceberg in upcoming years. A large number of web users have discarded traditional ideas of privacy to post information about themselves. Suppose Facebook applies some Machine Learning algorithm and can predict roughly which users will incur insurance claims. Inputs could include user-generated text, size and shape of social graph, entities recognized in user-generated photos, etc. That data would be valuable to insurers. It seems like many of these users are mentally in a living room with their friends, while actually uploading their private info to a corporation's servers.
- pyre 17y ago
  While that may be the case, in this instance the insurance company is probably in the wrong. The Facebook photos along should not be enough for them to say that she's cured. Maybe enough for them to feel they need to spawn an investigation, but I somehow doubt that they consulted with her doctor or had a doctor of their own choosing interview her. An insurance claims agent looking at Facebook photos is not enough to say, "Look! There's a smile on her face! She can't be depressed! It's impossible for a depressed person to smile!" This isn't exactly the same as seeing a photo of someone that claims to be paralyzed from the waist-down running in a marathon... How the insurance company accessed the photos in this instance is irrelevant. I'm more concerned with how they used them once they had them. I'd be concerned with how they obtained them if there was a possibility of using 'dubious means' though.
KevBurnsJr 17y ago
This is what happens when we treat mental illness like physical illness. Depression just ain't the same as a broken leg.

18 points by kirubakaran 17y ago

This is private disability insurance in a province of Canada? How does that interact with Canada's system of medical insurance?

imack 17y ago
There are still private insurance companies that will cover things not normally covered by the provincial plans. Drugs would be another good example of something not universally covered (depending on drug). Drugs are, however, price controlled in many cases. My sister has asthma, and has to pay a lot for inhalers; thus, working somewhere with health coverage is still a big concern for her. Quebec always tends to do things a little differently, but I'm surprised at this because in general they cover more things publicly, not less. I'm betting that the province would only cover "long term" disability.
pyre 17y ago
You should really read up on how the various systems of government medical systems work. In the UK, the government owns the hospitals, so some things are free and somethings require payment (which you can get medical insurance for). In Germany, it's a government-owned insurance company and the hospitals are still privately or publicly owned. In Canada, the health system is not tied to the Federal government as much as each Provence has their own health plan/system. (i.e. Ontario has OHIP, the Ontario Health Insurance Plan). You can get insurance from your employer (or privately) that basically covers whatever the government plan doesn't (including some medications, etc that aren't normally covered).

anigbrowl 17y ago

The most interesting part: She also doesn’t understand how Manulife accessed her photos because her Facebook profile is locked and only people she approves can look at what she posts. Assuming this is not a case of user error, I too wonder about that. The insurance issue is interesting too, but the 'depression = disability?' question is rather too broad for HN.

sounddust 17y ago
Because the default privacy setting for photo albums is "visible to everyone", and most people don't realize that it's independent from profile privacy. It's one of the many flaws of facebook's privacy (at least for an ordinary user who isn't web-savvy). Also - even if she totally locked down her profile, the photos of her could have been uploaded by friends with more lenient privacy settings.

tptacek 17y ago

You can get paid sick leave for "depression" in Canada? (You can't easily claim worker's comp for mental illness in the US without it being concomitant to a physical injury; I'm not making a statement about the seriousness of depression.)

anonjon 17y ago
"depression" is serious. I would down vote you if I could.
- req2 17y ago
  Drug addiction is serious. Can you get paid sick leave for drug addiction?
  - pyre 17y ago
    Possibly. I'll assume that you're really wondering this and not just being sarcastic. If you are being sarcastic, then why don't you look up whether or not drug addiction is a disability under a Canadian insurer instead of making a comment that doesn't add too much to the discussion?
    - tptacek 17y ago
      The answer to that question in the US appears to be "no". Canadian EI sickness benefits are paid, at least in some cases, to workers who are residents at inpatient clinics for addiction. ... but not, apparently, by Worker's Comp in Manitoba. Nor is mental illness in general, unless concomitant to a physical trauma.
- padmanabhan01 17y ago
  If it is serious, why aren't those benefits available in US?
  - antipaganda 17y ago
    Prejudice.

callmeed 17y ago

I'll be totally honest–I'm having a really hard time generating a fair opinion on this matter. I'm not going to pretend to know how depression works, how often it strikes patients, or how much it disables a person. If you truly can't work, I get it. OTOH, if you can go on vacation, it would seem to me that you could perhaps work part-time, try to attend vocational rehab, or something. I know it's not popular to side with big insurance companies, but I can't blame them for at least investigating claims like this.

enjo 17y ago
My father is a V.A. Dentist. He routinely sees veterans who are collecting big benefit checks and receiving full medical (plus travel compensation) for PTSD. The the thing is, they never get "better". They live on the tax-payees dime perpetually. Most have never seen combat. This is a lot like that.
- pyre 17y ago
  > Most have never seen combat. That's anecdotal at best.
- antipaganda 17y ago
  There's no widely-accepted cure for PTSD yet. Sometimes people get better on their own, but we really don't know why.
nfnaaron 17y ago
Obviously none of us knows how the woman's therapist or other professional counseled her. But I can imagine a mental health professional telling someone "you should try to get out. Don't lock yourself at home. Go out with friends. Go to the beach. Just don't sit at home in the dark and stew." So, you go out. You smile. You make progress. It's not "I'm cured," it's "this is one thing I'm doing to help myself." For the insurance company to deny coverage based on that, is about the same as denying coverage for anti-depressants because you're taking anti-depressants. Of course we can assume that they're just looking for a reason, any reason, to deny coverage. The worker who did this probably gets better performance reviews for more denials. The closest to reasonable that this could have ever come, is for the insurance company to request consultation with her and her doctor. What actually happened is a non-qualified functionary made a potentially life-threatening decision. Probably just before lunch.

lmkg 17y ago

I have trouble believing that even a professional, experienced psychiatrist or therapist can diagnose being cured from clinical depression based on a handful of facebook photos. I also have trouble believing that the decision at the insurance company was made with any involvement whatsoever from professional psychiatrists, much less her therapist in particular. Dropping coverage is potentially dangerous, if they're on medication. Altering (or stopping) anti-depressent dosages requires professional oversight. And if you're getting worker's comp, I certainly hope you're on medications.

GiraffeNecktie 17y ago

What people don't seem to understand about insurance is that they are entirely motivated by profit. They're not your mom and dad. They're not going to feel obligated just because you've been contributing to their plan for twenty years. If you have car accident, for example, they're ok with you being laid up for a few weeks but after a certain point you become a problem, a very serious problem and they'll do whatever it takes to get you back to work. Or off their books. Either way it doesn't matter. The longer you drain their funds, the more intensely they'll scrutinize your life, looking for some justification to ditch you. If you're on sick leave due to depression it's just dumb to post party pictures on the Internet.

asher 17y ago

I think this is the tip of a large iceberg, and we may see more of the iceberg in upcoming years. A large number of web users have discarded traditional ideas of privacy to post information about themselves. Suppose Facebook applies some Machine Learning algorithm and can predict roughly which users will incur insurance claims. Inputs could include user-generated text, size and shape of social graph, entities recognized in user-generated photos, etc. That data would be valuable to insurers. It seems like many of these users are mentally in a living room with their friends, while actually uploading their private info to a corporation's servers.

pyre 17y ago
While that may be the case, in this instance the insurance company is probably in the wrong. The Facebook photos along should not be enough for them to say that she's cured. Maybe enough for them to feel they need to spawn an investigation, but I somehow doubt that they consulted with her doctor or had a doctor of their own choosing interview her. An insurance claims agent looking at Facebook photos is not enough to say, "Look! There's a smile on her face! She can't be depressed! It's impossible for a depressed person to smile!" This isn't exactly the same as seeing a photo of someone that claims to be paralyzed from the waist-down running in a marathon... How the insurance company accessed the photos in this instance is irrelevant. I'm more concerned with how they used them once they had them. I'd be concerned with how they obtained them if there was a possibility of using 'dubious means' though.

KevBurnsJr 17y ago

This is what happens when we treat mental illness like physical illness. Depression just ain't the same as a broken leg.