Professional News

PRESS RELEASE
January 13, 1999
KBA The Human Resource Technology Company

"Helping People Thrive"

New insights on right-left brain are pointing the way to success in business and sports. Eighteen months ago, The Harvard Business Review carried an article on the link between functional specialization, as reflected by the MBTI (Meyers Briggs Type Indicator) and HBDI, and corporate productivity. Fourteen months ago, Sports Illustrated carried an article linking successful player selection to a coach’s use of the TYPE. And six months ago the LA Times devoted an entire supplement to how a person’s Type or Thinking Style can be used to predict and improve behavior.

One of the leaders in the field of applying brain science to daily life to achieve better results is Dr. Katherine Benziger, author of The Art of Using Your Whole Brain. Under the direction of Dr. Benziger, KBA has developed a powerful set of tools, which currently being used by executives, career counselors and therapists coaching others to self-manage for improved performance, quality of life and wellness.

The model is an updated, neuro-physiologically grounded version of Dr. Carl Gustav Jung's work and an excellent next step tool for those already using the MBTI. Significantly, the Benziger Model offers a major improvement over Meyers Briggs, Disc, the HBDI and most other assessments in use today. This is because it is the only model which acknowledges and tracks the phenomenon Dr. Jung called "Falsification of Type". In discussing Falsification of Type, Jung indicated that people can be seen as functionally specialized much as tools are functionally tools, which are most efficient and effective when they are used for the task for which they are designed. Thus, although one can use a wrench instead of a hammer to drive a nail, one will do a better, faster job using a hammer. Today, thanks to breakthroughs in neuro-science, we know that what makes each of us like a specialized tool is our brain’s chemistry. Each of us has a functionally specialized area in our brain that operates 100 times more efficiently, due to the significantly lower levels of electro-chemical resistance it enjoys naturally. When we use this area, the one that is naturally efficient, each of us thinks clearly and easily, performs well, and sustains a high level of interest and enthusiasm for our work. By contrast, when we are put into a position which requires we Falsify Type, that we use mostly skills which are outside our area of natural effectiveness, we tend to have difficulty, become irritable, make errors, and resent our job and our employer.

Falsification of Type occurs on the job whenever a person is doing a task which requires he or she use primarily skills which are outside his/her brain’s, area of naturally efficiency. One study by Dr. Benziger indicates that 70% of the workforce are Falsifying Type to perform their jobs. What’s more, according to Dr. Benziger, Falsification of Type causes: low productivity; poor morale; high use of sick days; increased incidence of stress-related illnesses and turn-over in the workforce. By contrast, placing people in the "right job for them" as well as managing people with a sensitivity to their brain’s natural preferences, can promote: improved productivity, higher morale, diminished use of sick days, decreased incidence of stress-related illnesses and decreased turn-over.

For more about Dr. Benziger and her breakthrough tools, as well as a detailed presentation of the critical ways in which her work offers an improvement over older, better known HR tools, visit www.benziger.org

For more information, please contact:

KBA The Human Resource Technology Company

PO Box 1283

Dillon, Colorado 80435

katherine.benziger@airmail.net

UT Southwestern Doctors Find Cognitive Therapy as Effective as Drug Therapy for Treating Atypical Depression

DALLAS, May 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Psychotherapy can be just as effective for treating atypical major depression as the standard drug treatment, which is monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitor phenelzine sulfate, reported UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas researchers in today's Archives of General Psychiatry.

Dr. Robin Jarrett, associate professor of psychiatry, said this is the first time researchers have compared medication and psychotherapy for atypical depression in a randomized, placebo-controlled trial. It is only the second time cognitive therapy for major depression has been tested in a randomized study containing a pill placebo.

"The implication of the study is that cognitive therapy is an effective alternative to MAO inhibitors for patients with major depressive disorder with affective features," she said. "These findings are important because clinicians and patients now have a tested and effective alternative to pharmacotherapy."

In the 10-week study, UT Southwestern researchers, led by Jarrett, treated 108 patients experiencing atypical depression. One-third received phenelzine sulfate; one-third received cognitive therapy, which teaches people to examine the relationship between emotions, thoughts and behavior; and one-third received a pill placebo. Fifty-eight percent of patients in both the cognitive therapy group and the phenelzine group responded to treatment. Twenty-eight percent in the placebo group responded positively.

The central feature of atypical depression is that the patient's mood brightens when positive events occur. People with atypical depression may gain weight and spend large amounts of time sleeping. Other symptoms include feeling weighted down or heavy and being extremely sensitive to interpersonal rejection.

"More research on atypical depression treatments still needs to be done, including evaluating the effectiveness of serotonin reuptake inhibitors like Prozac and Zoloft," Jarrett said.

Other UT Southwestern researchers who participated in the study were Drs. Martin Schaffer and Paul Silver, clinical assistant professors of psychiatry; Dr. Greg Eaves, clinical assistant professor of psychology; Dr. Rodger Kobes, clinical associate professor of psychiatry; Dr. Dolores Kraft, assistant professor of psychiatry; Dr. Donald McIntire, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology; and Dr. Paul Orsulak, professor of psychiatry.

The National Institute of Mental Health provided funding for the research, and Parke-Davis donated the medication and matching placebo.

UPMC Study Shows What May Be the Most Effective Treatment For Depressed Elderly

PITTSBURGH, Jan. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- In the first-ever study to compare different therapies for the treatment and prevention of recurrent major depression in the elderly, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) have found that a combination of medication and psychotherapy is significantly more effective than medication or psychotherapy alone and that continued treatment can significantly reduce the risk of recurrence.

The study, in today's Journal of the American Medical Association, examined the rate of recurrence in a group of 124 depressed elderly participants aged 60 and older who had been split into four groups to compare the effectiveness of different treatments. One group received both the antidepressant drug nortriptyline, a tricyclic antidepressant, and monthly interpersonal therapy (IPT). A second group received only the medication, while a third group received only IPT. The fourth group received a placebo. They all were followed for three years.

The results showed that the combination of nortriptyline and IPT prevented recurrence of depression in 80 percent of the patients, while medication alone prevented recurrence in 57 percent of the patients and IPT in 36 percent. Only 10 percent of patients in the placebo group remained well.

"These results clearly show that a combination of medication and interpersonal therapy is the best treatment for preventing recurrence of depression in the elderly," commented principal investigator Charles F. Reynolds III, M.D., professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at UPMC's Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic (WPIC). "These results are at odds with the way treatment standards are moving under managed care. Most plans allow only medication or medication with limited therapy. If our results hold true, combination therapy would not only be better for the patients, but save health care dollars in the long run."

Depression in old age affects at least one in six people and an even higher percentage among those in hospitals and nursing homes. It has serious health consequences, including suicide, illness and increased health care costs to society. Depression in the elderly is usually treated over a six-to- twelve- month period, but the chance of a recurrence during the two to three years after initial treatment is approximately 60 to 80 percent.

"Because of the devastating effects this disorder has on the elderly, we have made it a priority to find effective maintenance treatments to prevent recurrences," said Dr. Reynolds. "It was important for us to assess the major treatment strategies because some elderly patients may refuse to take medication and some have added stresses such as bereavement and role transitions to cope with."

"Dr. Reynolds and his team of researchers should be commended for their contribution to the field. To conduct a study of this magnitude requires a cohesive team of investigators committed to their community," commented Arthur S. Levine, M.D., senior vice chancellor for the Health Sciences and dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. "A long-term commitment by patients and their families is essential, and the unique bond Dr. Reynolds' researchers have formed with their patients encourages them to see the study through."

The study is a continuation of research centered at WPIC. In 1990, Ellen Frank, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and psychology, and David J. Kupfer, M.D., Thomas Detre Professor and Chair, department of psychiatry and professor of neuroscience, published a landmark paper regarding the treatment of recurrent depression among adults. That study found that medication alone worked as well as a combination of medication and psychotherapy in preventing the recurrence of depression in middle-aged adults.

Other authors include: Ellen Frank, Ph.D.; James M. Perel, Ph.D.; Stanley D. Imber, Ph.D.; Cleon Cornes, M.D.; Mark D. Miller, M.D.; Sati Mazumdar, Ph.D.; Patricia R. Houck, M.S.H.; Mary Amanda Dew, Ph.D.; Jacqueline A. Stack, M.S.N.; Bruce G. Pollock, Ph.D.; and David J. Kupfer, M.D., all of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

For additional information about UPMC Health System, please access http://www.upmc.edu.

For more information, contact: Craig Dunhoff, dunhoffcc@msx.upmc.edu, or Lisa Rossi, rossiL@msx.upmc.edu, of UPMC, 412-624-2607, or fax, 412-624-3184.

Downstream Risk Management: Implications
by James T. Wrich

Managed behavioral health care (MBHC) firms have significantly reduced mental health and substance abuse treatment expenditures in recent years. Most of this reduction has come as a result of denial of care. But with the near elimination of service at the inpatient, primary residential, intensive outpatient and partial hospitalization levels, MBHCs have nowhere else to reduce fees except at the individual and group therapy levels.

The following is an analysis of the impact on private practice psychotherapists when managed behavioral health care companies reduce their fees. Also an estimate of the impact such fee reductions can have on MBHC's profit margins has been calculated.

[Note: Wrich has a page long series of calculations of fees/ client hours/weeks per year--i.e. vacation, sick leave, and conference time--minus office expense--100% FICA to a taxable income. It is too complicated for me to put up the whole thing. So I will put up a brief summary of his chart.]

$80/25 client hours= $94,800 Gross and $54,300 taxable for a 40-hr week

$70/28 client hours=$94,080 Gross and $53,580 taxable for a 45-hr week

Note: He doesn't even go to $40 a client hour and thought $50 was too low to include but he did $50/32 client hours w/3 additional work weeks =$78,400 gross and $37,700 taxable for a 53 hour work week.

Upstream Benefits Of Down Stream Risk Transfer The following calculates the potential increase in profits when a managed behavioral health care company reduces its feels to private psychotherapists from $70 per hour to $55. (Note: You can calculate in $40)

	$70 per hour fee	$55 per hour fee
Total revenue	$200,000,000	$200,000,000
Direct Care*	120,000,000	94,300,000
Gen & Admin	50,000,000	50,000,000
Pre-Tax Profit	30,000,000	55,700,000
Taxes (35%)	10,500,000	19,500,000
NET PROFIT	19,500,000	36,200,000

*Direct Care = payments to professionals or providers

You may want to look more closely at our Find-A-Therapist listing:

BUSINESS WEEK ONLINE
November 5, 1998

WHY THAT PHONE NUMBER MAY BECOME HARD TO FIND

Let your fingers do the walking. That has been the phone companies' pitch for years, as they tried to lure customers into the Yellow Pages' domain. Expect those nimble digits to hit some potholes in the months ahead, however. That's because telecom deregulation, which was designed to improve service and lower prices, is also forcing the $105 billion local-phone business to change the way in which it collects the hundreds of millions of listings that fill the nation's Yellow and White Pages.

This isn't likely to undermine the entire phone book, but it could result in thousands of deleted numbers and out-of-order entries in both Yellow and White Page directories. That could hurt some business customers. And it will likely rankle residential consumers, who already have been stung by rising directory-assistance costs and increasingly spotty service. "There is a risk that the information is going to get very bad," predicts Kenneth L. Bickford, director of new media at the Sunshine Pages, an independent directory publisher in Metairie, La.

What's going on here? For decades, AT&T, and more recently, the Baby Bells, held monopolies over local telephone service. Whenever the Bells signed up a new customer, the person's address and phone number was shuttled directly to the companies' directory-publishing arms. Maintaining the directories was simple, because they drew from single, master databases. "The Bell employees have been doing it for one way for 38 years," says Mark Maynard, senior operations manager at Time Warner Telecom, a unit of the media giant that now markets local phone service in 19 areas. "They don't understand the new competitive world."

That new world, created by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, is one in which the incumbent Bells must both compete -- and cooperate -- with challengers in the market. There are now about 150 of these challengers, called Competitive Local Exchange Carriers, according to the U.S. Telephone Assn. Even as the two camps slug it out to sign on new customers, they are required by law to work together on many of the back-end operations that support the phone network. One of those areas is directory listings, which depend on a seemingly simple process of recording new names and numbers and deleting obsolete ones.

The process does run smoothly -- where one company controls one giant database. Industry officials note, however, that directory quality has deteriorated as the competitors began to merge multiple lists. "It's crazy if you've got 200 companies trying to swap information," says Deanna Kriege, a GTE spokesperson. While the incumbent publishers still control the directories, they've struggled to mesh competitors' data-entry systems with their own. Oftentimes, the number of data "fields" -- the places where information appears -- in a directory listing are incompatible, or a competitor has yet to master the Bells' arcane set of rules for coding a new listing. While both the Bells and the upstarts preach cooperation, neither side is above bickering. Privately, the Bells say their rivals are neglecting their customers and often mishandling the directory procedures.

"Some people have been omitted simply because they did not get handled in a timely fashion," says Rook Barretto, a liaison with local-exchange competitors at BellSouth Advertising & Publishing Co., which publishes phone books throughout the Southeast. "They've switched their phone company and found that not everything is the same."

Meanwhile, some competitors say the Bells are dragging their feet as a way to discourage customers from switching. That contention became an issue in California, where the state's Public Utility Commission recently turned down Pacific Bell's application to enter the long-distance market (which, under the Telecom Act, is supposed to be the company's "reward" for allowing competition in local markets). One of the grounds for the denial was PacBell's inefficient integration of competitors' directory listings.

PacBell, says California PUC attorney Kelly Boyd, "is not used to doing it and is not really accommodating." The arrangement whereby the Bells maintain the central directory database, says Boyd, "is like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse." Pacific Bell did not return calls seeking comment.

Despite the recent frictions, both incumbent and new carriers recognize the need for an accurate and complete phone book. "It's in their economic interest to cooperate," says Bear, Stearns & Co. telecom analyst James H. Henry. "The utility of a network grows exponentially with each new customer, and the same is for directory listings." The Alliance for Telecommunication Industry Solutions -- an industry group -- has organized forums to standardize the directory infrastructure. Many Bells are also setting up special mechanisms to handle competitors' new listings. GTE, for instance, now has three clearinghouses for processing competitors' listings.

Luckily for the Bells, the competitors have yet to take off. BellSouth, for instance, has received some 350,000 listings from competitors, which is less than 1% of its total volume. That means it can handle listing discrepancies manually. The Bells are now bracing for higher volumes, for which automation will become a necessity. "We've had a chance to work out a lot of the hiccups," says GTE's Kriege. "If and when it becomes a bigger issue, we'll be ready."

"This is one area where incumbents and competitors have a great incentive to cooperate," says Charles Kallenbach, vice-president of regulatory affairs for e.spire Communications, a local carrier competitor operating in 32 cities. "It's not in our interest to harm the databases."

Even if competitors do standardize the listing system, they're still grappling with one anomaly wrought by deregulation: "Mixed" listings. Say, for instance, a university allows its departments to choose whichever local telephone carrier they like. The anthropology department stays with the local Bell. The geology department chooses Time Warner. Because each of those departments is considered under different "ownership," the two might not appear in alphabetical order. They may not even be grouped under a unified university listing. "If you had a dozen AAMCO Transmission shops and each of them goes to a different telephone company, who decides what order those listings go in?" asks the Sunshine Pages' Bickford.

Telephone executives are scratching their heads. While they need a central authority to organize the lisings, the competitors are reluctant to have a rival company set a listing order. And while they promise to cooperate, they've yet to come up with a solution.

"We will see more errors as time goes by," predicts BellSouth's Barretto. "That will be due to volume, but also because they [competitors] will expand into more complex business accounts."

Indeed, complexity remains the byword for the new world of telecom. Fingers, have you ever tried a triathlon?

By Dennis Berman, staff reporter, Business Week Online

Psychologists seek to prescribe medication,

http://www.apa.org/monitor/rx.html

Medical Data Up For Grabs

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP)–Dr. Robert M. Stark realized just how little privacy his patients have when he was visited by a representative from a pharmacy management company.

"He showed me a computer list of 40 or 50 of my patients who had been prescribed a certain cholesterol-lowering drug,'' the Greenwich cardiologist said. "He asked me if I wanted to shift the patients to a less expensive but equally effective drug.''

Stark wants to know how the representative–who was retained by his health maintenance organization–compiled a list of his patient's names.

"It's truly the tip of the iceberg,'' he said.

Some state organizations agree, and officials are trying to deal with the explosion of private medical information about people that is becoming very public.

It is possible that every detail of a visit to the doctor could turn up in a computer database available to health plan administrators, billing departments, pharmacists, drug companies, life insurers, prospective employers, mortgage lenders, state agencies and researchers.

Connecticut law has nothing to govern the dissemination of patient histories, and Congress is still dealing with a federal law to curtail the heavy traffic of medical records. Many experts predict that privacy provisions added to the bill, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, are at best a first step.

Peter Kane, a New Haven social worker and chairman of the Connecticut Coalition for Patient Confidentiality, said the extent of computer records is a major issue.

"What should be on computers? The government and third-party payers say everything,'' Kane said.

Perhaps patients should be required to give consent whenever the record travels, he said. Right now, virtually no one knows who has their records.

Hospitals and other health care agencies are preparing for the new federal legislation. The law was amended to include privacy codes, which are being heard by congressional committees. The act calls for standardized codes to allow a seamless flow of information. All health plans and providers that make or keep electronic patient records must adopt comprehensive information security measures. Breach of confidentiality is punishable by fines up to $250,000 and//or up to 10 years in prison.

Meanwhile, patient records remain open books.

Harry Rhodes, practice manager at the American Health Information Management Association in Chicago, estimates that if a person goes to the hospital, about 150 different people will look at his records.

"The information can be in 100 databases,'' he said. "More and more eyes are looking at your records.''

Mary Kilburn, Ph.D. 4016 Barrett Drive, Suite 104 Raleigh, North Carolina 27609 919-781-5162 www.mindspring.com/~marykilburn

Survey: Stigma Keeps Millions with Anxiety Disorders From Treatment

NEW YORK, Nov. 4 /PRNewswire/--Shame, fear and embarrassment are the top reasons anxiety disorders--America's most common mental illnesses--largely go untreated, shows a new survey.

The nationwide poll released today by the National Mental Health Association found that more than half of Americans believe that stigma prevents individuals with anxiety disorders from seeking treatment, despite a surprisingly high recognition of the illnesses.

Nineteen million Americans suffer from anxiety disorders. Fewer than one third receive treatment.

"These findings account for the wide discrepancy between the common occurrence of anxiety disorders and the low numbers in treatment," said Michael Faenza, president and CEO of the National Mental Health Association. "The shame associated with anxiety disorders is completely unfounded. Anxiety disorders are real illnesses that deserve the same level of understanding and treatment as diabetes, arthritis or heart disease."

Stigma--such as the fear of being perceived as weak--appears to be based on misinformation. Though 81 percent of those polled were aware of anxiety disorders, 61 percent wrongly believed that anxiety disorders occur in people who lack the will power to cope with everyday life stress, are usually caused by underlying guilt, or will go away if you ignore them and get on with your life.

The study yielded one hopeful conclusion. The more people recognized that anxiety disorders are real illnesses, the less likely they were to have misperceptions about their root causes (e.g., guilt or low will power) and more likely they were to believe that medical and psychological treatments work.

"Education is still vital. Americans need to know the real deal about anxiety disorders, their signs and symptoms, and their causes," Faenza said. "Since people with anxiety disorders are at higher risk of suicide, eradicating misunderstanding and stigma with a good dose of the facts can really save lives."

Faenza announced that the National Mental Health Association has launched an anxiety disorders public education campaign to chip away at stigma and bridge the gap between awareness and treatment.

The campaign will target not only the general public, but also primary care physicians. About one third of all visits to primary care physicians are related to anxiety disorders. However, many doctors are not trained to detect or treat anxiety and frequently individuals go misdiagnosed or untreated.

Campaign partners will also coordinate and promote free anxiety disorders screenings for the public year-round.

Anxiety disorders include Panic Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and Phobias (such as Social Phobia). Symptoms of these disorders include panic attacks, obsessive thoughts, flashbacks, nightmares, and frightening physical symptoms. Each anxiety disorder has emotional, psychological and biological underpinnings and can be treated through targeted psychotherapy, medications, or a combination of the two.

Anxiety disorders cost the U.S. $46.6 billion each year, nearly one-third of the nation's total mental health bill of $148 billion.

Free information on anxiety disorders, other mental illnesses and effective treatments is available from the National Mental Health Association: 800-969-6642 or www.nmha.org.

The National Mental Health Association is America's leading non-profit organization dedicated to improving treatment, services and understanding for the millions of adults and children with mental and emotional disorders.

NMHA's poll was made possible through an unrestricted grant from Solvay Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Date: Tuesday, November 03, 1998 10:52 PM

Subject: Integrated Health Supercontract

Scores of psychologists, some social workers, and now MFCCs in California have been receiving a new contract invitation in the mail in the last couple of weeks. The company is Integrated Health Plan, out of St. Petersburg, Florida. For an application/credentialing fee of $95, the recipient can become a provider for a blind list of PPO payors. Integrated claims to have 1100 payors nationwide signed up, but when I asked, said they were unable to tell me which ones might be active in California. So the provider has no idea what companies s/he is contracting with, let alone what the provisions of those specific contracts are. There is no way to opt out of any specific PPO later without withdrawing from Integrated completely. The company rep I spoke with said they are trying to preserve the flexibility of PPO arrangements compared to HMOs, for the benefit of both consumers and providers. Integrated doesn't do UR or quality assurance itself but binds the providers to the procedures of each payor. It is not selective about payors it signs up.

I am flabbergasted that many of my colleagues say they are sending in their money and signing this contract.

I'm curious to know if people in other parts of the country are receiving this invitation also.

Ruth Cliff
ruthcliff@aol.com

Considering credentials?
http://www.counseling.org/enews/volume_1/0121a.htm

Here is a quick checklist for anyone considering an appellation to their name. Whether you are a graduate student or an experienced practitioner, you will benefit from knowing these guidelines for becoming and staying credentialed.

A crack in ERISA: Federal judge rules HMOs can be sued for negligence

HARTFORD, Conn., Oct. 27 - Health maintenance organizations can be sued for negligence based on the quality of care they dictate to a patient, a federal judge has ruled. What many observers see as a landmark ruling came Monday in the case of Nitai Moscovitch, a 16-year-old from Brookfield, who committed suicide in July, 1995 after an HMO refused to pay for his continued hospitalization.

Nitai Moscovitch The Moscovitch family claimed their son would still be alive if their HMO hadn’t refused to pay for treatment. So, they sued the HMO, the Trumbull-based Physicians Health Services, in Superior Court in Danbury for failing to provide a proper standard of care and a judge decided the case can go forward. "He wasn’t protected. He wasn’t protected. I put him in the hospital to be protected. That’s why you put people in hopsitals," Nitai’s father Stewart Moscovitch told NBC 30.

It was at this facility where Nitai Moscovitch committed suicide. In July of 1995 a depressed Nitai Moscovitch tried unsuccessfully to commit suicide. Because of that he began receiving psychiatric care at Danbury Hospital. But, soon after he was transferred to Norwalk’s Vitam Youth Treatment Center, a drug treatment facility. The transfer was made at the insistence of the family’s HMO. It was there where Nitai killed himself. His father says Nitai should never have been moved from Danbury Hospital and that the HMO was negligent. "All he needed was some help and PHS wouldn’t give it to him," Moscovitch said. It may take a couple of years, but this could very well be that the first Connecticut case involving a lawsuit against an HMO could be heard at Danbury Superior Court. Lawyers for PHS had argued that a 1974 federal law barring claims based on denial of insurance benefits required that the Moscovitch lawsuit be dismissed. But, U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Droney ruled that the Moscovitch case wasn’t about denial of benefits or what the family’s medical plan covered, rather, that it focused on the quality of care dictated by the HMO. He sent the case back to state court for trial. Lawyer Karen Koskoff, who represents Moscovitch’s estate, said that Droney’ s decision "is extremely significant, because the judge determined that when an HMO makes medical decisions in the state of Connecticut, that HMO will be held accountable for its actions like any other health care provider."

"(HMOs) evaluate medical records and spend a lot of time and money to provide medical care that is usually substandard and was in this case," Koskoff added. "This decision sends a message that in Connecticut, the insurance capital of the world, this action will not be tolerated." Tuesday, PHS released the following statement regarding the case. "PHS is confident that once all the facts are presented in court, they will prove that PHS fulfilled its obligation to ensure that our members have access to the health care services they need."

View the original article at:

http://www.msnbc.com/local/WVIT/122278.asp