In this video Marc Whitehead, a Board Certified Disability Attorney, explains how insurance companies attempt to deny claims by stating the claimant is non-compliant.
While you may be trying to follow the rules laid out by the insurance policy and work with the insurance company so that you can hopefully receive benefits, this doesn’t mean that the insurance company won’t make this difficult. Because they may “work for you” but the reality is that their job is to limit payouts as much as possible.
It may have come to the point where you have had to take a stand and tell the insurance company no to some of the hoops they were trying to get you to jump through. While you may feel good about this stand, the insurance company will not hesitate to send you a letter stating you as being “non-compliant” and refusing your claim. Some people ask if this is something the insurance company is actually able to do, unfortunately they are but there are ways around it.
Non- Compliant means that the disability insurance company has asked you to do something and you have refused. Generally speaking, insurance companies use this requirement when a patient doesn’t follow their disability doctors advice and taking medications or decides not to undergo recommend treatment.
You can’t just decide not to do something on a whim or you risk harming yourself and your claim. With that said, there are ways around being accused of non-compliance or at least ways to prove that your decision was based on something reasonable and valid.
Reasonable reasons include:
-Not having the money.
Doctors can prescribe expensive medication or order a treatment for your condition but if you are not able to work how can you be expected to pay for it. The answer is you can’t, and if you are not taking the medication because you are unable to afford it, the insurance company isn’t allowed to label you as non-compliant.
You are worried about the danger
Just because your disability doctor suggests you take a certain kind of medication or have a particular procedure done doesn’t mean that your safety is guaranteed. If you believe that the risks out weight the rewards and you can put together a valid argument against it no one can make you undergo surgery or anything else that’s medically dangerous.