An attending physician statement (APS) is a report by a Physician, Hospital or Medical facility who has treated, or who is currently treating, a person seeking insurance. In traditional underwriting, an APS is one of the most frequently ordered additional sources of medical background information. The APS one of the more expensive underwriting requirements, as well as the most time consuming. It is usually completed only when a doctor has free time, as their primary focus is caring for patients. The underwriting cycle time is often severely hampered by the APS as it could take weeks or even months to obtain. Once obtained, it can be laborious to review and summarize as APS reports can be large documents containing an indepth medical history information (which may or may not be relevant).
In structured underwriting the data capture process with the proposed insured is asked very detailed questions to attempt to reduce the number of attending physician's statements necessary. However, many medical conditions require supporting evidence from the doctor. This is where an APS Summary can assist the underwriter in evaluating the proposed insured’s medical risk(s). The APS summaries however, are only as good as the underwriter's experience which varies widely from person to person. Additionally, APS summaries when processed without a “template structure” guiding the information gathered from the APS often yield inconsistent or miss critical underwriting information. Either inconsistent or missing underwriting information will compromise the risk analysis process.
By leveraging a seasoned underwriter's knowledge and experiences, scripts can be built that ensure the appropriate medical information is captured and recorded from the APS document. This is done creating scripts that prompt the person summarizing the APS to enter all pertinent specific medical condition uncovered. Many benefits can be realized from this summary process, but the most powerful benefit is that a previous paper document has now been transformed into structured information!
Historically, APS summaries have been performed almost exclusively by underwriters. Leveraging a “rules based” scripting and underwriting system it may now be possible to use a lesser skill set to perform this function. We believe this works best with a medically trained person such as: Medical professional, Nurses, Underwriters, Junior underwriters, physician assistants, medical students, etc.
As you would expect with any non-underwriting skill-set appropriate training is needed to address summarizing APS information to the “right level” of detail.