Patients have branded Bupa's strategy to review knee surgery as ‘risking the integrity of the doctor-patient relationship' and ‘not in line with best clinical practice'.
The statement is the latest in a series of disagreements between Bupa and the British Orthopaedic Association (BOA) over the insurer's policy to review all patients referred for arthroscopic knee surgery.
Bupa has called the process necessary to reduce the rate of referrals it is seeing, which overall is twice that of the NHS and, it claimed, three times greater from some surgeons.
This latest development came as the BOA published the results of its Patient Liaison Group held earlier this week.
Its statement said: "The Group discussed the Bupa initiative on arthroscopy and expressed the opinion that Bupa is putting at risk the integrity of the doctor-patient relationship by proposing a 'distant' review scheme.
"The Group further feels that a system of reviewing a course of treatment recommended by a qualified surgeon on the basis of the patient's medical needs by someone who has no knowledge of the patient and his or her particular situation is not in line with best clinical practice," it added.
Bupa is preparing a response to the new comments which will be published on the COVER website as soon as it is received.
As reported by COVER, last week the BOA renewed its criticism of the process and called for the private medical insurance (PMI) provider to inform all its policyholders of the change.
However Bupa maintained that it was only reviewing the funding of the surgery, not whether it could go ahead altogether.
But the BOA suggested that removing funding could result in significant clinical consequences due to inevitable delays or possibly the cancellation of treatment.
