AMA Claims Insurer Is Unfair to Patients

The American Medical Assn. has told Aetna U.S. Healthcare, the second-biggest U.S. managed-care company, that its policies could be depriving patients of proper care. In a just-released letter sent to Aetna more than a month ago, the AMA said a contract the company uses for doctors in Florida and elsewhere is vague and allows the company too much leeway to deny benefits. The company’s chief legal officer, David Simon, told Reuters that one provision of the contract to which the AMA objected has already been deleted, and denied that the company was being vague in the way it outlines benefits to patients and physicians.