ONLY IN CANADA (haha) –
Sept. 12, 2021 – “Most of us have to pay crazy amounts of money to use the companies owned by the same group of doctors who dictate our return-to-work requirements,” said Victoria nurse Rebecca Humberstone, who has been required to undergo drug testing for years after an evaluation by a doctor who owns one of these companies. Humberstone is the co-founder of Workers for Ethical Substance Use Policy, one of several organizations arguing that doctors who perform independent medical examinations (IMEs) for substance use disorders should not profit from the medical monitoring industry.
They argue that even if a doctor isn’t directly referring a patient to their own company, they’re still propping up a sector they profit from.
“It’s a relatively small group of doctors involved in the evaluations and reports stipulating treatment details, and they refer patients to each other’s companies to avoid being accused of a conflict of interest,” Humberstone argued.
