We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living

Re:We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living by starving_coder on Monday May 18, 2015 @01:40PM (#9565773)

"In the United States, we usually don’t autopsy people unless the cause of death is mysterious or foul play is suspected."

In any case, health insurance doesn't cover autopsy. Turns out its classified as postmortem to deny insurance coverage. there was an hour long special on NPR sometime in 2014.

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Re:We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living by sokoloff on Monday May 18, 2015 @02:10PM (#9565958)

Why should health insurance cover autopsy?

Given no chance of "recovery" from the condition, there's no health interest to the subscriber, right?

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Re:We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living by kinghajj on Monday May 18, 2015 @02:24PM (#9566031)

Not to the subscriber that has passed, but insurance companies may benefit from the knowledge acquired from autopsies. Analysis could reveal that if the company covered some drug/procedure, the overall usage rate per subscribe decreases, saving them money in the long run.

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Re:We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living by Terr_ on Monday May 18, 2015 @04:56PM (#9566823)

In an amoral economic sense, insurance companies don't profit by helping people eke out their problem-prone later years, versus helping generally-healthy people avoid death and stay customers.

There are probably scenarios where their best-case scenario is to say: "Oh well, I guess it was his time to go" and move on.

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Re:We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living by mikeash on Monday May 18, 2015 @02:20PM (#9566016)

If it's for the public good then it ought to be paid from taxes. If it's just to satisfy the curiosity of friends and family then maybe they could pay for it themselves. Unless it'll somehow bring the deceased back to life, it would be weird for health insurance to cover an autopsy.

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Re:We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living by altcognito on Monday May 18, 2015 @03:00PM (#9566218)

If you believe that subscribers don't have an interest in improving medicine, then yes. But medical care and the health care industry as a whole are more complicated than this.

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Re:We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living by logfromblammo on Monday May 18, 2015 @05:18PM (#9566917)

An autopsy could reveal medical malpractice. As such, I could see that there might be a benefit for a life insurance company to cover a more detailed examination of the cause of death.

After all, the insurer has been harmed to the extent that between the actual demise of the insured and the statistically predicted time of death, they can no longer collect premiums and interest. And the insured has been harmed by being deprived of life during that same span.

But given that many doctors are covered by malpractice insurance from the same company or family of companies, that would be a case of taking from Peter to pay Paul. And it would probably line the pockets of lawyers and medical examiners to a greater extent than those who suffered the harm.

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Re:We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living by anigbrowl on Monday May 18, 2015 @03:22PM (#9566330)

Well, it is postmortem by definition. I don't get the argument in favor of it being treated otherwise.

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